I think this supposed English "heroes" is more post-WWI and post-WWII trauma and coping than the actual historic English culture.

Basically it is cope for losing history's greatest empire in a generation.

You don't see this in the pre-WWI authors. Look at Rudyard Kipling (see Mowgli who although Indian is very English). Look at Fleming and James Bond. *

See also Dickens and some of his heroes such as Nicholas Nickleby.

What is being passed as English culture is just fairly recent retconning due to WWI and WWII and the crisis in English thought it produced.

* Removed previously incorrect statement including Edgar Rice Burroughs who is an American although Tarzan is English

> You don't see this in the pre-WWI authors. Look at Rudyard Kipling (see Mowgli who although Indian is very English). Look at Burroughs and Tarzan. Or even Fleming and James Bond.

Not to detract from your broader point, but Burroughs was an American writing a British character in Tarzan.