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 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