The Talacre dispute foregrounded issues of gentry honour in ways which have not been examined closely in recent scholarship. The very fact of being able to make and maintain a claim of ownership of a significant estate was closely connected to the public standing of all parties involved. We are often told that possession of land and estates was a key component of early modern gentility, but perhaps have not considered the degree to which contests over such resources thus naturally involved issues of honour and public reputation. Also implicated in this, of course, was the ability of the various gentry participants to enact their roles as householders and heads of extended familial units, roles which themselves were bound up with ideas of what an honourable gentleman should be and how he should act. Sir John Egerton's sensibilities in regard to property seem to have been sharpened by an awareness that his extensive estates were principally derived from the good graces of his cousin Edward Egerton. Moreover, he had been touched in this respect by a defeat in Cheshire at the hands of the earl of Derby, something which seems to have affected him deeply. He evidently considered his honour closely involved with his claim to Talacre and with not suffering a reverse at the hands of minor gentlemen, and Catholic gentlemen at that, in an obscure part of Wales.

The struggle over Talacre was protracted and disruptive to the local community. It involved the confrontation of groups of gentlemen and their associated kinsmen and retainers, threats to property, violence to symbols of authority, and physical and verbal attacks. Such characteristics are associated with the gentry feud, often considered characteristic of less ‘enlightened’ societies which, as they ‘civilised’, learned to moderate their aggressive inclinations through recourse to law. Such a view has been influential in characterising early modern England and Wales, with the kingdom being portrayed as balanced in a transitional period between the violent Middle Ages and the pacified modern period. We thus see a ‘decline of violence’ in society over time, occurring first among elites who adopt civilised characteristics earliest and provide exemplars of behaviour later imitated by those lower down the social order.