Fryers._

Written
By GEORGE CHAPMAN, Gentleman.

[Illustration]

LONDON:

Printed by _T. S._ and are to be solde by IOHN HELME,
at his Shop in S. Dunstones Church-Yard,
in _Fleetstreet_. 1613.

SOURCES

The story of a plot by Bussy D'Ambois's kinsfolk to avenge his murder
is, in the main, of Chapman's own invention. But he had evidently read
an account similar to that given later by De Thou of the design
entertained for a time by Bussy's sister Renee (whom Chapman calls
Charlotte) and her husband, Baligny, to take vengeance on Montsurry.
Clermont D'Ambois is himself a fictitious character, but the episodes in
which he appears in Acts II-IV are drawn from the account of the
treacherous proceedings against the Count d'Auvergne in Edward
Grimeston's translation of Jean de Serres's _Inventaire General de
l'Histoire de France_. This narrative, however, is not by De Serres, but
by Pierre Matthieu, whose _Histoire de France_ was one of the sources
used by Grimeston for events later than 1598.

The portraiture of Clermont throughout the play as the high-souled
philosopher is inspired by Epictetus's delineation in his _Discourses_
of the ideal Stoic. But in his reluctance to carry out his duty of
revenge he is evidently modelled upon Hamlet. In Act V, Scene i, the
influence of Shakespeare's tragedy is specially manifest.

The Scenes in Act V relating to the assassination of Guise are based
upon Grimeston's translation of De Serres's _Inventaire General_.

The passages in Grimeston's volume which recount the Duke's murder, and
those which tell the story of the Count d'Auvergne, are reprinted as an
Appendix.

The frontispiece to this volume, the Chateau of La Coutanciere, at which
Bussy D'Ambois was killed, is reproduced from an illustration in A.
Joubert's _Louis de Clermont_.

TO THE RIGHT

VERTUOUS, AND

truely Noble Knight, Sr.

_Thomas Howard, &c._

_Sir_,

Since workes of this kinde have beene lately esteemed
worthy the patronage of some of our worthiest
Nobles, I have made no doubt to preferre this of mine
to your undoubted vertue and exceeding true noblesse,
as contayning matter no lesse deserving your reading, 5
and excitation to heroycall life, then any such late dedication.
Nor have the greatest Princes of Italie and other
countries conceived it any least diminution to their greatnesse
to have their names wing'd with these tragicke
plu