I know that the English gentleman is famed for self-deprecation: very many English gentlemen have explained this in print, at length. (No doubt they'd be happy do so face-to-face, but I've managed to avoid that.)

"“Brother,” cried Bath, “I own it was wrong, and I ask the doctor’s pardon: I know not how it happened to arise; for you know, brother, I am not used to talk of these matters. They are generally poltroons that do. I think I need not be beholden to my tongue to declare I am none. I have shown myself in a line of battle. I believe there is no man will deny that; I believe I may say no man dares deny that I have done my duty.”

The colonel was thus proceeding to prove that his prowess was neither the subject of his discourse nor the object of his vanity, when a servant entered and summoned the company to tea with the ladies; a summons which Colonel James instantly obeyed, and was followed by all the rest."

Henry Fielding, Amelia.