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 f