Bussy DAmbois and The Revenge of Bussy DAmbois | Page 4

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 Massacre 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 Massacre 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 assuage 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 massacre 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 God 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 Duchess, 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 massacre 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 passed 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