Although, Col. Bayley had given way to the ‘capricious emanations’ from his brain, it nevertheless caused him to consider his own conduct both foolish and regretful (see previous chapter). Despite the latent potential for violence lying within the breast of many a gentleman, it will soon become apparent that most – the overwhelming majority, I will suggest – of gentlemen conducted their lives without resort to so serious a hazard as a duel. The instinct for self-preservation was not still-born in the English gentleman and although I have referred to the tensions that existed when gentlemen vied for attention or sought to impose themselves upon public space, nevertheless it is self-evident that even the most trying of social gatherings did not engender a blood bath. In truth, reference to the obligations of honour was rarely made save where the norms of gentlemanly behaviour had been so violated that no equable resolution was possible.

In the seventeenth century the norms of behaviour had been established by the values of courtliness; but by 1700, courtliness had given way to politeness, as espoused by Addison and Steele and the Spectator. Politeness, according to Klein:

Politeness was not a value-free step towards general civility, rather, as Langford asserts, the new values of politeness marked a claim, even a demand, on the part of the relatively well placed to be acknowledged and accommodated.