Note xii:1 — Introduction

Through the kindness of Professor Baker I have seen an unpublished paper of Mr. P. C. Hoyt, Instructor in Harvard University, which first calls attention to the combined suggestiveness of three entries in Henslowe's Diary (Collier's ed.) for any discussion of the date of Bussy D'Ambois. In Henslowe's "Enventorey of all the aparell of the Lord Admirals men, taken the 13th of Marcher 1598," is an item, "Perowes sewt, which Wm Sley were." (Henslowe's Diary, ed. Collier, p. 275.) In no extant play save Bussy D'Ambois is a character called Pero introduced. Moreover, Henslowe (pp. 113 and 110) has the following entries: "Lent unto Wm Borne, the 19 of novembr 1598 . . . the some of xijs, wch he sayd yt was to Imbrader his hatte for the Gwisse. Lent Wm Birde, ales Borne, the 27 of novembr, to bye a payer of sylke stockens, to playe the Gwisse in xxs." Taken by themselves these two allusions to the "Gwisse" might refer, as Collier supposed, to Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris. But when combined with the mention of Pero earlier in the year, they may equally well refer to the Guise in Bussy D'Ambois. Can Bussy D'Ambois have been the unnamed "tragedie" by Chapman, for the first three Acts of which Henslowe lent him iijli on Jan. 4, 1598, followed by a similar sum on Jan. 8th, "in fulle payment for his tragedie?" The words which Dekker quotes in Satiromastix, Sc 7 (1602), "For trusty D'Amboys now the deed is done," seem to be a line from a play introducing D'Ambois. If, however, the play was written circa 1598, it must have been considerably revised after the accession of James I to the throne, for the allusions to Elizabeth as an "old Queene" (1, 2, 12), and to Bussy as being mistaken for "a knight of the new edition," must have been written after the accession of James I (Chronicle of the English Drama, 1, 59). But Mr Fleay's further statement that the words, "Tis leape yeere" (1, 2, 85), "must apply to the date of production," and "fix the time of representation to 1604," is only an ingenious conjecture. If the words "Ile be your ghost to haunt you," etc (1, 2, 243-244), refer to Macbeth, as I have suggested in the note on the passage, they point to a revision of the play not earlier than the latter part of 1606.