Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois Part 1

Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois.

by George Chapman.

Prefatory Note

In this volume an attempt is made for the first time to edit _Bussy D'Ambois_ and _The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois_ in a manner suitable to the requirements of modern scholars.h.i.+p. Of the relations of this edition to its predecessors some details are given in the Notes on the Text of the two plays. But in these few prefatory words I should like to call attention to one or two points, and make some acknowledgments.

The immediate source of _Bussy D'Ambois_ still remains undiscovered. But the episodes in the career of Chapman's hero, vouched for by contemporaries like Brantome and Marguerite of Valois, and related in some detail in my _Introduction_, are typical of the material which the dramatist worked upon. And an important clue to the spirit in which he handled it is the identification, here first made, of part of Bussy's dying speech with lines put by Seneca into the mouth of Hercules in his last agony on Mount Oeta. The exploits of D'Ambois were in Chapman's imaginative vision those of a semi-mythical hero rather than of a Frenchman whose life overlapped with his own.

On the _provenance_ of _The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois_ I have been fortunately able, with valuable a.s.sistance from others, to cast much new light. In an article in _The Athenaeum_, Jan. 10, 1903, I showed that the immediate source of many of the episodes in the play was Edward Grimeston's translation (1607) of Jean de Serres's _Inventaire General de l'Histoire de France_. Since that date I owe to Mr. H. Richards, Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford, the important discovery that a number of speeches in the play are borrowed from the _Discourses_ of Epictetus, from whom Chapman drew his conception of the character of Clermont D'Ambois. My brother-in-law, Mr. S. G. Owen, Student of Christ Church, has given me valuable help in explaining some obscure cla.s.sical allusions. Dr. J. A. H. Murray, the editor of the _New English Dictionary_, has kindly furnished me with the interpretation of a difficult pa.s.sage in _Bussy D'Ambois_; and Mr. W. J. Craig, editor of the _Arden_ Shakespeare, and Mr. Le Gay Brereton, of the University of Sidney, have been good enough to proffer helpful suggestions. Finally I am indebted to Professor George P. Baker, the General Editor of this Series, for valuable advice and help on a large number of points, while the proofs of this volume were pa.s.sing through the press.

F. S. B.

Biography

George Chapman was probably born in the year after Elizabeth's accession. Anthony Wood gives 1557 as the date, but the inscription on his portrait, prefixed to the edition of _The Whole Works of Homer_ in 1616, points to 1559. He was a native of Hitchin in Hertfords.h.i.+re, as we learn from an allusion in his poem _Euthymiae Raptus_ or _The Teares of Peace_, and from W. Browne's reference to him in _Britannia's Pastorals_ as "the learned shepheard of faire Hitching Hill." According to Wood "in 1574 or thereabouts, he being well grounded in school learning was sent to the University." Wood is uncertain whether he went first to Oxford or to Cambridge, but he is sure, though he gives no authority for the statement, that Chapman spent some time at the former "where he was observed to be most excellent in the Latin & Greek tongues, but not in logic or philosophy, and therefore I presume that that was the reason why he took no degree there."

His life for almost a couple of decades afterwards is a blank, though it has been conjectured on evidences drawn from _The Shadow of Night_ and _Alphonsus Emperor of Germany_, respectively, that he served in one of Sir F. Vere's campaigns in the Netherlands, and that he travelled in Germany. _The Shadow of Night_, consisting of two "poeticall hymnes"

appeared in 1594, and is his first extant work. It was followed in 1595 by _Ovid's Banquet of Sence_, _The Amorous Zodiac_, and other poems.

These early compositions, while containing fine pa.s.sages, are obscure and crabbed in style.[v-1] In 1598 appeared Marlowe's fragmentary _Hero and Leander_ with Chapman's continuation. By this year he had established his position as a playwright, for Meres in his _Palladis Tamia_ praises him both as a writer of tragedy and of comedy. We know from Henslowe's _Diary_ that his earliest extant comedy _The Blinde Begger of Alexandria_ was produced on February 12, 1596, and that for the next two or three years he was working busily for this enterprising manager. _An Humerous dayes Myrth_ (pr. 1599), and _All Fooles_ (pr.

1605) under the earlier t.i.tle of _The World Runs on Wheels_,[vi-1] were composed during this period.

Meanwhile he had begun the work with which his name is most closely linked, his translation of Homer. The first instalment, ent.i.tled _Seaven Bookes of the Iliades of Homere, Prince of Poets_, was published in 1598, and was dedicated to the Earl of Ess.e.x. After the Earl's execution Chapman found a yet more powerful patron, for, as we learn from the letters printed recently in _The Athenaeum_ (cf. _Bibliography_, sec.

III), he was appointed about 1604 "sewer (i. e. cupbearer) in ordinary,"

to Prince Henry, eldest son of James I. The Prince encouraged him to proceed with his translation, and about 1609 appeared the first twelve books of the _Iliad_ (including the seven formerly published) with a fine "Epistle Dedicatory," to "the high-born Prince of men, Henry." In 1611 the version of the _Iliad_ was completed, and that of the _Odyssey_ was, at Prince Henry's desire, now taken in hand. But the untimely death of the Prince, on November 6th, 1612, dashed all Chapman's hopes of receiving the antic.i.p.ated reward of his labours. According to a pet.i.tion which he addressed to the Privy Council, the Prince had promised him on the conclusion of his translation 300, and "uppon his deathbed a good pension during my life." Not only were both of these withheld, but he was deprived of his post of "sewer" by Prince Charles. Nevertheless he completed the version of the _Odyssey_ in 1614, and in 1616 he published a folio volume ent.i.tled _The Whole Works of Homer_. The translation, in spite of its inaccuracies and its "conceits," is, by virtue of its sustained dignity and vigour, one of the n.o.blest monuments of Elizabethan genius.

By 1605, if not earlier, Chapman had resumed his work for the stage. In that year he wrote conjointly with Marston and Jonson the comedy of _Eastward Hoe_. On account of some pa.s.sages reflecting on the Scotch, the authors were imprisoned. The details of the affair are obscure.

According to Jonson, in his conversation later with Drummond, Chapman and Marston were responsible for the obnoxious pa.s.sages, and he voluntarily imprisoned himself with them. But in one of the recently printed letters, which apparently refers to this episode, Chapman declares that he and Jonson lie under the Kings displeasure for "two clawses and both of them not our owne," i. e., apparently, written by Marston.[vii-1] However this may be, the offenders were soon released, and Chapman continued energetically his dramatic work. In 1606 appeared two of his most elaborate comedies, _The Gentleman Usher_ and _Monsieur D'Olive_, and in the next year was published his first and most successful tragedy, _Bussy D'Ambois_. In 1608 were produced two connected plays, _The Conspiracie and Tragedie of Charles, Duke of Byron_, dealing with recent events in France, and based upon materials in E. Grimeston's translation (1607) of Jean de Serres' History. Again Chapman found himself in trouble with the authorities, for the French amba.s.sador, offended by a scene in which Henry IV's Queen was introduced in unseemly fas.h.i.+on, had the performance of the plays stopped for a time. Chapman had to go into hiding to avoid arrest, and when he came out, he had great difficulty in getting the plays licensed for publication, even with the omission of the offending episodes. His fourth tragedy based on French history, _The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois_, appeared in 1613. It had been preceded by two comedies, _May-Day_ (1611), and _The Widdowes' Teares_ (1612). Possibly, as Mr Dobell suggests (_Athenaeum_, 23 March, 1901), the coa.r.s.e satire of the latter play may have been due to its author's annoyance at the apparent refusal of his suit by a widow to whom some of the recently printed letters are addressed. In 1613 he produced his _Maske of the Middle Temple and Lyncolns Inne_, which was one of the series performed in honour of the marriage of the Princess Elizabeth and the Elector Palatine. Another hymeneal work, produced on a much less auspicious occasion, was an allegorical poem, _Andromeda Liberata_, celebrating the marriage of the Earl of Somerset with the divorced Lady Ess.e.x in December, 1613.

The year 1614, when the _Odyssey_ was completed, marks the culminating point of Chapman's literary activity. Henceforward, partly perhaps owing to the disappointment of his hopes through Prince Henry's death, his production was more intermittent. Translations of the _Homeric Hymns_, of the _Georgicks_ of Hesiod, and other cla.s.sical writings, mainly occupy the period till 1631. In that year he printed another tragedy, _Caesar and Pompey_, which, however, as we learn from the dedication, had been written "long since." The remaining plays with which his name has been connected did not appear during his lifetime. A comedy, _The Ball_, licensed in 1632, but not published till 1639, has the names of Chapman and s.h.i.+rley on the t.i.tle-page, but the latter was certainly its main author. Another play, however, issued in the same year, and ascribed to the same hands, _The Tragedie of Chabot, Admiral of France_ makes the impression, from its subject-matter and its style, of being chiefly due to Chapman. In 1654 two tragedies, _Alphonsus Emperour of Germany_ and _The Revenge for Honour_, were separately published under Chapman's name. Their authors.h.i.+p, however, is doubtful. There is nothing in the style or diction of _Alphonsus_ which resembles Chapman's undisputed work, and it is hard to believe that he had a hand in it. _The Revenge for Honour_ is on an Oriental theme, entirely different from those handled by Chapman in his other tragedies, and the versification is marked by a greater frequency of feminine endings than is usual with him; but phrases and thoughts occur which may be paralleled from his plays, and the work may be from his hand.

On May 12, 1634, he died, and was buried in the churchyard of St.

Giles's in the Field, where his friend Inigo Jones erected a monument to his memory. According to Wood, he was a person of "most reverend aspect, religious and temperate, qualities rarely meeting in a poet." Though his material success seems to have been small, he gained the friends.h.i.+p of many of the most ill.u.s.trious spirits of his time--Ess.e.x, Prince Henry, Bacon, Jonson, Webster, among the number--and it has been his good fortune to draw in after years splendid tributes from such successors in the poetic art as Keats and A. C. Swinburne.

FOOTNOTES:

[v-1] This Biography was written before the appearance of Mr. Acheson's volume, _Shakespeare and the Rival Poet_. Without endorsing all his arguments or conclusions, I hold that Mr. Acheson has proved that Shakespeare in a number of his Sonnets refers to these earlier poems of Chapman's. He has thus brought almost conclusive evidence in support of Minto's identification of Shakespeare's rival with Chapman--a conjecture with which I, in 1896, expressed strong sympathy in my _Shakspere and his Predecessors_.

[vi-1] This identification seems established by the entry in Henslowe's _Diary_, under date 2 July 1599. "Lent unto thomas Dowton to paye Mr Chapman, in full paymente for his boocke called the world rones a wh.e.l.les, and now all foolles, but the foolle, some of ______ x.x.xs."

[vii-1] See pp. 158-64, Jonson's _Eastward Hoe and Alchemist_, F. E.

Sch.e.l.ling (Belles Lettres Series, 1904).

Introduction

The group of Chapman's plays based upon recent French history, to which _Bussy D'Ambois_ and its sequel belong, forms one of the most unique memorials of the Elizabethan drama. The playwrights of the period were profoundly interested in the annals of their own country, and exploited them for the stage with a magnificent indifference to historical accuracy. Gorboduc and Locrine were as real to them as any Lancastrian or Tudor prince, and their reigns were made to furnish salutary lessons to sixteenth century "magistrates." Scarcely less interesting were the heroes of republican Greece and Rome: Caesar, Pompey, and Antony, decked out in Elizabethan garb, were as familiar to the playgoers of the time as their own national heroes, real or legendary. But the contemporary history of continental states had comparatively little attraction for the dramatists of the period, and when they handled it, they usually had some political or religious end in view. Under a thin veil of allegory, Lyly in _Midas_ gratified his audience with a scathing denunciation of the ambition and gold-hunger of Philip II of Spain; and half a century later Middleton in a still bolder and more transparent allegory, _The Game of Chess_, dared to ridicule on the stage Philip's successor, and his envoy, Gondomar. But both plays were suggested by the elements of friction in the relations of England and Spain.

French history also supplied material to some of the London playwrights, but almost exclusively as it bore upon the great conflict between the forces of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The _Masaker of France_, which Henslowe mentions as having been played on January 3, 1592-3, may or may not be identical with Marlowe's _The Ma.s.sacre at Paris_, printed towards the close of the sixteenth century, but in all probability it expressed similarly the burning indignation of Protestant England at the appalling events of the Eve of St. Bartholomew. Whatever Marlowe's religious or irreligious views may have been, he acted on this occasion as the mouthpiece of the vast majority of his countrymen, and he founded on recent French history a play which, with all its defects, is of special interest to our present inquiry. For Chapman, who finished Marlowe's incompleted poem, _Hero and Leander_, must have been familiar with this drama, which introduced personages and events that were partly to reappear in the two _Bussy_ plays. A brief examination of _The Ma.s.sacre at Paris_ will, therefore, help to throw into relief the special characteristics of Chapman's dramas.

It opens with the marriage, in 1572, of Henry of Navarre and Margaret, sister of King Charles IX, which was intended to a.s.suage the religious strife. But the Duke of Guise, the protagonist of the play, is determined to counterwork this policy, and with the aid of Catherine de Medicis, the Queen-Mother, and the Duke of Anjou (afterwards Henry III), he arranges the ma.s.sacre of the Huguenots. Of the events of the fatal night we get a number of glimpses, including the murder of a Protestant, Scroune, by Mountsorrell (Chapman's Montsurry), who is represented as one of the Guise's most fanatical adherents. Charles soon afterwards dies, and is succeeded by his brother Henry, but "his mind runs on his minions," and Catherine and the Guise wield all real power.

But there is one sphere which Guise cannot control--his wife's heart, which is given to Mugeroun, one of the "minions" of the King. Another of the minions, Joyeux, is sent against Henry of Navarre, and is defeated and slain; but Henry, learning that Guise has raised an army against his sovereign "to plant the Pope and Popelings in the realm," joins forces with the King against the rebel, who is treacherously murdered and dies crying, "_Vive la messe!_ perish Huguenots!" His brother, the Cardinal, meets a similar fate, but the house of Lorraine is speedily revenged by a friar, who stabs King Henry. He dies, vowing vengeance upon Rome, and sending messages to Queen Elizabeth, "whom G.o.d hath bless'd for hating papistry."

It is easy to see how a play on these lines would have appealed to an Elizabethan audience, while Marlowe, whether his religious sympathies were engaged or not, realized the dramatic possibilities of the figure of the Guise, one of the lawlessly aspiring brotherhood that had so irresistible a fascination for his genius. But it is much more difficult to understand why, soon after the accession of James I, Chapman should have gone back to the same period of French history, and reintroduced a number of the same prominent figures, Henry III, Guise, his d.u.c.h.ess, and Mountsorrell, not in their relation to great political and religious outbreaks, but grouped round a figure who can scarcely have been very familiar to the English theatre-going public--Louis de Clermont, Bussy d'Amboise.[xii-1]

This personage was born in 1549, and was the eldest son of Jacques de Clermont d'Amboise, seigneur de Bussy et de Saxe-Fontaine, by his first wife, Catherine de Beauvais. He followed the career of arms, and in 1568 we hear of him as a commandant of a company. He was in Paris during the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew, and took advantage of it to settle a private feud. He had had a prolonged lawsuit with his cousin Antoine de Clermont, a prominent Huguenot, and follower of the King of Navarre.

While his rival was fleeing for safety he had the misfortune to fall into the hands of Bussy, who dispatched him then and there. He afterwards distinguished himself in various operations against the Huguenots, and by his bravery and accomplishments won the favour of the Duke of Anjou, who, after the accession of Henry III in 1575, was heir to the throne. The Duke in this year appointed him his _couronell_, and henceforward he pa.s.sed into his service. In 1576, as a reward for negotiating "_la paix de Monsieur_" with the Huguenots, the Duke received the territories of Anjou, Touraine, and Berry, and at once appointed Bussy governor of Anjou. In November the new governor arrived at Angers, the capital of the Duchy, and was welcomed by the citizens; but the disorders and exactions of his troops soon aroused the anger of the populace, and the King had to interfere in their behalf, though for a time Bussy set his injunctions at defiance. At last he retired from the city, and rejoined the Duke, in close intercourse with whom he remained during the following years, accompanying him finally on his unsuccessful expedition to the Low Countries in the summer of 1578. On Anjou's return to court in January, 1579, Bussy, who seems to have alienated his patron by his presumptuous behaviour, did not go with him, but took up his residence again in the territory of Anjou. He was less occupied, however, with his official duties than with his criminal pa.s.sion for Francoise de Maridort, wife of the Comte de Monsoreau, who had been appointed _grand-veneur_ to the Duke. The favorite mansion of the Comte was at La Coutanciere, and it was here that Bussy ardently pursued his intrigue with the Countess. But a jocular letter on the subject, which he sent to the Duke of Anjou, was shown, according to the historian, De Thou, by the Duke to the King, who, in his turn, pa.s.sed it on to Montsoreau. The latter thereupon forced his wife to make a treacherous a.s.signation with Bussy at the chateau on the night of the 18th of August, and on his appearance, with his companion in pleasure, Claude Cola.s.seau, they were both a.s.sa.s.sinated by the retainers of the infuriated husband.

The tragic close of Bussy's life has given his career an interest disproportionate to his historical importance. But the drama of La Coutanciere was only the final episode in a career crowded with romantic incidents. The annalists and memoir-writers of the period prove that Bussy's exploits as a duellist and a gallant had impressed vividly the imagination of his contemporaries. Margaret of Valois, the wife of Henry IV, Brantome, who was a relative and friend of D'Ambois, and L'Estoile, the chronicler and journalist, are amongst those who have left us their impressions of this _beau sabreur_. Chapman must have had access to memorials akin to theirs as a foundation for his drama, and though, for chronological reasons, they cannot have been utilized by him, they ill.u.s.trate the materials which he employed.

The first two Acts of the play are chiefly occupied with Bussy's arrival at court, his entry into the service of Monsieur, his quarrel with Guise, and the duel between himself and Barrisor, with two supporters on either side. Brantome, in his _Discours sur les Duels_, relates from personal knowledge an incident between Guise and Bussy, which took place shortly after the accession of Henry III. The Duke took occasion of a royal hunting party to draw Bussy alone into the forest, and to demand certain explanations of him. D'Ambois gave these in a satisfactory manner; but had he not done so, the Duke declared, in spite of their difference of rank, he would have engaged in single combat with him. The explanations demanded may well have concerned the honour of the d.u.c.h.ess, and we get at any rate a hint for the episode in Chapman's play (I, ii, 57-185).

For the duelling narrative (II, i, 35-137) we get considerably more than a hint. Our chief authority is again Brantome, in another work, the _Discours sur les Couronnels de l'infanterie de France_. He tells us that he was with Bussy at a play, when a dispute arose between him and the Marquis of Saint-Phal as to whether the jet embroidery on a certain m.u.f.f represented XX or YY. The quarrel was appeased for the time being, but on the following day Bussy, meeting Saint-Phal at the house of a lady with whom he had had relations, and who was now the mistress of the Marquis, renewed the dispute. An encounter took place between Bussy, supported by five or six gentlemen, and Saint-Phal, a.s.sisted by an equal number of Scotchmen of the Royal Guard, one of whom wounded Bussy's hand. Thereupon Saint-Phal withdrew, but his fire-eating rival was anxious at all hazards for another encounter. It was only with the greatest difficulty, as Brantome relates in entertaining fas.h.i.+on, that the King was able to bring about a reconciliation between them. Such an episode, reported with exaggeration of details, might well have suggested the narrative in Act II of the triple encounter.

Brantome further relates a midnight attack upon Bussy, about a month later, by a number of his jealous rivals, when he had a narrow escape from death. Of this incident another account has been given by Margaret of Valois in her _Memoires_. Margaret and her brother, the Duke of Anjou, were devoted to one another, and Bussy was for a time a paramour of the Queen of Navarre. Though she denies the liaison, she says of him that there was not "_en ce siecle-la de son s.e.xe et de sa qualite rien de semblable en valeur, reputation, grace, et esprit_." Margaret, L'Estoile, and Brantome all relate similar incidents during Bussy's sojourn at court in the year 1578, and the last-named adds:

"_Si je voulois raconter toutes les querelles qu'il a eues, j'aurois beaucoup affaire; helas! il en a trop eu, et toutes les a desmeslees a son tres-grand honneur et heur. Il en vouloit souvant par trop a plusieurs, sans aucun respect; je luy ay dict cent fois; mais il se fioit tant en sa valeur qu'il mesprisoit tous les conseils de ses amis . . . Dieu ayt son ame!

Mais il mourut (quand il trespa.s.sa) un preux tres vaillant et genereux._"

It is plain, therefore, that Chapman in his picture of Bussy's quarrels and encounters-at-arms was deviating little, except in details of names and dates, from the actual facts of history. Bussy's career was so romantic that it was impossible for even the most inventive dramatist to embellish it. This was especially true of its closing episode, which occupies the later acts of Chapman's drama--the intrigue with the Countess of Montsoreau and the tragic fate which it involved. It is somewhat singular that the earliest narratives of the event which have come down to us were published subsequently to the play. The statement, accepted for a long time, that De Thou's _Historiae sui Temporis_ was the basis of Chapman's tragedy, has been completely disproved. The pa.s.sage in which he narrates the story of Bussy's death does not occur in the earlier editions of his work, and first found its way into the issue published at Geneva in 1620. A similar narrative appeared in the following year in L'Estoile's _Journal_, which first saw the light in 1621, ten years after its author's death. But under a thin disguise there had already appeared a detailed history of Bussy's last _amour_ and his fall, though this, too, was later than Chapman's drama. A novelist, Francois de Rosset, had published a volume of tales ent.i.tled _Les Histoires Tragiques de Nostre Temps_. The earliest known edition is one of 1615, though it was preceded, probably not long, by an earlier edition full of "_fautes insupportables_," for which Rosset apologizes.

He is careful to state in his preface that he is relating "_des histoires autant veritables que tristes et funestes. Les noms de la pluspart des personnages sont seulement desguisez en ce Theatre, a fin de n'affliger pas tant les familles de ceux qui en ont donne le sujet._"

The fate of Bussy forms the subject of the seventeenth history, ent.i.tled "_De la mort pitoyable du valeureux Lysis_." Lysis was the name under which Margaret of Valois celebrated the memory of her former lover in a poem ent.i.tled "_L'esprit de Lysis disant adieu a sa Flore_." But apart from this proof of identification, the details given by Rosset are so full that there can be no uncertainty in the matter. Indeed, in some of his statements, as in his account of the first meeting between the lovers, Rosset probably supplies facts unrecorded by the historians of the period.

From a comparison of these more or less contemporary records it is evident that, whatever actual source Chapman may have used, he has given in many respects a faithful portrait of the historical Bussy D'Ambois.

It happened that at the time of Bussy's death the Duke of Anjou, his patron, was in London, laying ineffective siege to the hand of Elizabeth. This coincidence may have given wider currency in England to Bussy's tragic story than would otherwise have been the case. But a quarter of a century later this advent.i.tious interest would have evaporated, and the success of Chapman's play would be due less to its theme than to its qualities of style and construction. To these we must therefore now turn.

With Chapman's enthusiasm for cla.s.sical literature, it was natural that he should be influenced by cla.s.sical models, even when handling a thoroughly modern subject. His Bussy is, in certain aspects, the _miles gloriosus_ of Latin drama, while in the tragic crisis of his fate he demonstrably borrows, as is shown in this edition for the first time, the accents of the Senecan Hercules on Mount Oeta (cf. notes on v, iv, 100 and 109). Hence the technique of the work is largely of the semi-Senecan type with which Kyd and his school had familiarized the English stage. Thus Bussy's opening monologue serves in some sort as a Prologue; the narrative by the _Nuntius_ in Act II, i, 35-137, is in the most approved cla.s.sical manner; an _Umbra_ or Ghost makes its regulation entrance in the last Act, and though the acc.u.mulated horrors of the closing scenes violate every canon of cla.s.sical art, they had become traditional in the semi-Senecan type of play, and were doubtless highly acceptable to the audiences of the period. But while the Senecan and semi-Senecan methods had their dangers, their effect on English dramatists was in so far salutary that they necessitated care in plot-construction. And it is doubtful whether Chapman has. .h.i.therto received due credit for the ingenuity and skill with which he has woven into the texture of his drama a number of varied threads. Bussy's life was, as has been shown, crowded with incidents, and the final catastrophe at La Coutanciere had no direct relation with the duels and intrigues of his younger days at Court. Chapman, however, has connected the earlier and the later episodes with much ingenuity. Departing from historical truth, he represents Bussy as a poor adventurer at Court, whose fortunes are entirely made by the patronage of Monsieur. His sudden elevation turns his head, and he insults the Duke of Guise by courting his wife before his face, thus earning his enmity, and exciting at the same time the ridicule of the other courtiers. Hence springs the encounter with Barrisor and his companions, and this is made to serve as an introduction to the _amour_ between Bussy and Tamyra, as Chapman chooses to call the Countess of Montsurry. For Barrisor, we are told (II, ii, 202 ff.), had long wooed the Countess, and the report was spread that the "main quarrel" between him and Bussy "grew about her love," Barrisor thinking that D'Ambois's courts.h.i.+p of the d.u.c.h.ess of Guise was really directed towards "his elected mistress." On the advice of a Friar named Comolet, to whom Chapman strangely enough a.s.signs the repulsive _role_ of go-between, Bussy wins his way at night into Tamyra's chamber on the plea that he has come to rea.s.sure her that she is in no way guilty of Barrisor's blood. Thus the main theme of the play is linked with the opening incidents, and the action from first to last is laid in Paris, whither the closing scenes of Bussy's career are s.h.i.+fted. By another ingenious departure from historical truth the Duke of Anjou, to whom Bussy owes his rise, is represented as the main agent in his fall. He is angered at the favour shown by the King to the follower whom he had raised to serve his own ends, and he conspires with Guise for his overthrow. He is the more eagerly bent upon this when he discovers through Tamyra's waiting-woman that the Countess, whose favours he has vainly sought to win, has granted them to Bussy. It is he who, by means of a paper, convinces Montsurry of his wife's guilt, and it is he, together with Guise, who suggests to the Count the stratagem by which Tamyra is forced to decoy her paramour to his doom. All this is deftly contrived and does credit to Chapman's dramatic craftsmans.h.i.+p.

It is true that the last two Acts are spun out with supernatural episodes of a singularly unconvincing type. The Friar's invocation of Behemoth, who proves a most unserviceable spirit, and the vain attempts of this scoundrelly ecclesiastic's ghost to s.h.i.+eld D'Ambois from his fate, strike us as wofully crude and mechanical excursions into the occult. But they doubtless served their turn with audiences who had an insatiable craving for such manifestations, and were not particular as to the precise form they took.

In point of character-drawing the play presents a more complex problem.

Bussy is a typically Renaissance hero and appealed to the sympathies of an age which set store above all things on exuberant vitality and prowess, and was readier than our own to allow them full rein. The King seems to be giving voice to Chapman's conception of Bussy's character, when he describes him in III, ii, 90 ff. as

"A man so good that only would uphold Man in his native n.o.blesse, from whose fall All our dissentions arise," &c.

And in certain aspects Bussy does not come far short of the ideal thus pictured. His bravery, versatility, frankness, and readiness of speech are all vividly portrayed, while his mettlesome temper and his arrogance are alike essential to his _role_, and are true to the record of the historical D'Ambois. But there is a coa.r.s.eness of fibre in Chapman's creation, an occasional foul-mouthed ribaldry of utterance which robs him of sympathetic charm. He has in him more of the swashbuckler and the bully than of the courtier and the cavalier. Beaumont and Fletcher, one cannot help feeling, would have invested him with more refinement and grace, and would have given a tenderer note to the love-scenes between him and Tamyra. Bussy takes the Countess's affections so completely by storm, and he ignores so entirely the rights of her husband, that it is difficult to accord him the measure of sympathy in his fall, which the fate of a tragic hero should evoke.

Tamyra appeals more to us, because we see in her more of the conflict between pa.s.sion and moral obligation, which is the essence of drama. Her scornful rejection of the advances of Monsieur (II, ii), though her husband palliates his conduct as that of "a bachelor and a courtier, I, and a prince," proves that she is no light o' love, and that her surrender to Bussy is the result of a sudden and overmastering pa.s.sion.

Even in the moment of keenest expectation she is torn between conflicting emotions (II, ii, 169-182), and after their first interview, Bussy takes her to task because her