The Tragedie of Chabot Admirall of France: as it was presented by her Majesties Servants, at the private house in Drury Lane

London: Printed for Tho. Cotes for Andrew Crooke and William Cooke, 1639. FIRST EDITION. Hardcover. Fine. Bound in modern quarter red morocco by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, title and author tooled in gold on the spine. A nice copy with occ. mild soiling, a few small spots, an inky fingerprint on the title (possibly that of a pressman), a few corners irregular; blank corner of one leaf snipped. Complete with the final blank leaf. Signature of Charles Walmesley to title. Catchword on A4 verso, "He" appearing only as a capital H, the e having dropped (see Greg 550, note 2.). First edition of this tragedy written in the form of a historical allegory. In (truncated) Chapman’s play, the titular character, Philip Chabot, Admiral of France, is renowned for his honesty and integrity but serves in the corrupt and ruthless court of King François I (reg. 1515-1547). As the play unfolds, Chabot is targeted by the French Chancellor, Guillaume Poyet. He is arrested, tried, and narrowly avoids execution.

Aspects of the plot mirror the ouster of Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, from the court of James I. In 1615, Somerset, one of the king’s favorites, had been implicated in the poisoning of Thomas Overbury. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death but his sentence was commuted and instead he was imprisonment in the Tower. Eventually (in 1624), he was pardoned by James I. Francis Bacon, who would be impeached for corruption in 1621, was the chief prosecutor in the trial. Chapman wrote his play before Carr’s release (but after Bacon’s impeachment).

“The story [of Chabot] suggested to Chapman the analogy between Chabot's case and that of Somerset, especially since the fall of Bacon corresponded so closely to the fall of the French Chancellor Poyet. Chapman set out to write a play that would appeal to James I by showing how François I had exposed a faithful servant (Chabot) to the jealous rage of his enemies, and then received him back into favor and punished his adversaries.

“In the play, Chabot refuses to implement an unjust law and thereby leaves himself open to malice and manipulation; he is soon presented with a lawsuit from his rival, Anne de Montmorency. Chabot meets with the King and insists that he has maintained his integrity, but the King asks Poyet, the Lord Chancellor, to investigate Chabot’s possible corruption. Chabot is brought to trial, believing the trial to be another test by the King.

Poyet leads the court intrigues attacking Chabot, and he pressures the judges to find Chabot guilty. Poyet reports the guilty verdict to the King, urging that Chabot be executed as soon as possible. Chabot is brought before the King, who pardons him, but Chabot asserts that he cannot be pardoned because he is not guilty. After the truth of the manipulations emerges, Poyet is tried and found guilty. With the truth revealed, Chabot asks the King to pardon Poyet. The power of this merciful action weakens him, Chabot kneels before the King to thank him, and dies.

“The play was composed sometime between the fall of Bacon, 1621, and the pardon of Somerset in 1624. But it was not licensed for presentation until 1635 nearly a year after Chapman's death. How is one to account for this long delay? Easily enough if we assume that the Censor perceived the political significance of the play and refused a license to stage or to publish the work. In 1622 the Censor was superseded as Master of the Revels by Sir Henry Herbert, a kinsman of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. William Herbert had apparently been a member of the cabal which had contrived the overthrow of Somerset; certainly he had been one of the few friends of Bacon at the time of his trial. It is altogether likely that the Herberts would have refused a license to a play which showed their enemy in so favorable, their friend in so unhappy a light.” (Parrott 302-4)

The text of Chapman’s play includes posthumous edits by James Shirley, generally considered to provide a lightness to Chapman's sometimes heavier hand.

George Chapman:

“Chapman completed Marlowe's ‘Hero and Leander’ in 1598, dedicating the work to Lady Walsingham, who, with her husband, was one of Marlowe's benefactors. In the late 1590s Chapman began to establish himself as one of the chief dramatists for the Admiral's Men (a company which supported dramatic novelty), paid by Philip Henslowe and writing plays that were performed at the Rose Theatre. His earliest dramatic work, ‘The Blind Beggar of Alexandria’ (composed 1596, published 1598). These years also saw the first stirrings of Chapman's epic poetic ambitions. By turning to Homer and classical history, he was refining his poetic abilities as well as attempting to win a secure source of patronage. ‘The Seven Books of the Iliads’, a free translation of the Iliad published in 1598, features a dedication to the earl of Essex in which Chapman speaks of his difficult monetary circumstances.

“Chapman became sewer-in-ordinary to Henry, prince of Wales, possibly through the assistance of the earl of Suffolk, with the promise of £300 per annum and a pension. His plays from this point have a keener political edge … ‘Eastward Ho’ (1605) made a particularly trenchant critique. Co-written with Jonson and Marston as a reply to Dekker's and Webster's ‘Westward Ho’, the play subjects bourgeois manners and beliefs to ironic treatment. Expeditions to Virginia are mocked; apprentices are either sanctimonious or wasteful; and livery company structures are seen in disrepair. Although comment on James's knighting policies and northern accent remained in the printed copies, allusions to the Scots were deleted, and it was these, almost certainly, that led to the imprisonment of the dramatists in September 1605. For a while, at least, it looked as if Jonson and Chapman were to have their ears and noses cut, a state of affairs which no doubt prompted three letters from Chapman—one, to the king. Controversy was exacerbated, too, by the fact that the play was staged, unlicensed, while the court and the lord chamberlain were away from London. Ultimately, after two months, Chapman and Jonson (but not Marston, who appears to have escaped punishment) were released.

“After Chapman had gained release from gaol in November 1605 he wrote no more satiric comedy, ceasing all dramatic activity for the next two years. In 1609 Chapman had published an edition of ‘Twelve Books of the Iliad’ with a dedication to Prince Henry. This reveals that 356 lines had been changed from Chapman's 1598 edition, suggesting a scrupulous and refining attitude on his part. To the last Chapman was an exacting craftsman. The ‘Twelve Books of the Iliad’ are also of interest for what they reveal of Chapman's aristocratic connections. Sonnets are included addressing, among others, the duke of Lennox, Lord Ellesmere, the earl of Salisbury, and the earl of Suffolk (to whom Chapman was multiply indebted). Additional sonnets are directed to members of the Sidney–Pembroke family, and it is tempting to speculate that these reflected new patronage opportunities for a writer who, earlier, may have found favour with the Walsinghams (to whom the Sidney–Pembroke group was related).

“The period from 1614 onwards discovers a Chapman more centred on the world of learning and less anxious to carve out for himself a place in the metropolitan scene. ‘The Complete Odysseys’ was published in two parts between 1614 and 1615, while ‘The Whole Works of Homer’ was published 1616-1634. But Chapman was no straightforward translator. Although he taught himself Greek, referring as he worked to Spondamus's parallel Latin translations and to Scapula's Greek–Latin lexicon, he did not provide literal English versions of his originals; rather, he personalized the epic, appropriating his source and making Homer a writer of the early modern moment.

“Chapman died in London on 12 May 1634. He was buried in St Giles-in-the-Fields in a tomb designed and paid for by Inigo Jones. There is no evidence of surviving family.” (ODNB). (Inventory #: 4789)