Anything after Washington brought the risk of severe anti-climax, and there were aspects of The Hague that tested Percy and Jean. Their accommodation was a modest townhouse around the corner from the Palace of Peace where the Court sat. Several Australian visitors who passed through The Hague felt that Spender seemed lonely, perhaps missing the cut and thrust of political and international debates. He and Jean escaped occasionally to the flat they purchased in London, in Hyde Park Place, which was also their son John's base as he completed a law degree in London (and was called to the bar, Gray's Inn, in 1960). The transition to The Hague was harder on Jean, who struggled with illness from the start. She was ill for periods during 1958–9, without conclusive diagnosis; she suffered from insomnia, and appeared drawn and nervous at dinners with others, and spoke across and over Percy, stirring minor fights. Unlike in Washington, the Spenders struggled to make friends. The judges seldom stayed in Holland when the Court was in recess, and only around half of them lived in The Hague. Nor was it easy for any newcomers to establish quick rapport with the Dutch upper class; and for gregarious lovers of high society perched in a small townhouse, without butler, rather than a grand embassy, it was all the more difficult.