Notwithstanding the operation of the courts, to observers at the beginning of the nineteenth century the duel probably appeared to be in as rude a health as it had ever been. There were perhaps more honour disputes during the first decade of the nineteenth century than in either of the two previous decades. Many of those disputes were undoubtedly engendered by the stresses and strains of war, but the cessation of hostilities probably did not lead to an immediate decline in duelling. We know that after the war there were a number of duels between officers of the army of occupation in France and their French counterparts, who were eager to requite national humiliation through personal combat. Similarly, at home there were meetings to settle old grudges that had had to be postponed due to the inconveniences of conflict. Few, I suppose, can have anticipated that by the middle of the century the English duel would be defunct, this notwithstanding the fillip given to the institution when the Duke of Wellington met Lord Winchilsea in 1829. Even in Ireland, long held by Englishmen to be the breeding ground of quarrelsome and habitual duellists, the duel had entered a terminal decline by the second decade of the nineteenth century. By 1838 it was being declared, rather curiously, at the Royal Dublin Society that ‘Th ere is not one hostile meeting for twenty-three there used to be in this country.’ The very last duel on English soil was a remarkable and fatal affair fought in 1852 between two Frenchmen who had decamped from Calais for the purpose.

A discussion of the reasons for the decline and demise of English duelling after the Napoleonic Wars will occupy most of the rest of this book, and some very particular explanations will be required in order to explain the disappearance of honour culture from these islands. Why did the English gentlemen give up the duel, when it remained an important part of the broader European cultural milieu for at least another half century? The search for some answers can be profitably be begun by a brief consideration of the history of the duel upon the Continent, in particular in three countries, France, Italy and Germany.