Montsoreau

is presumably Charles de Chambes, Count de Montsoreau (* 28 November 1549; † 29 September 1620), who was part of the entourage of Alençon. He was wounded in the battle of Coutras. In 1576 he married Françoise de Maridor, who had an affair with Louis de Bussy d’Amboise, whom Montsoreau murdered in 1579. This inspired George Chapman to write the plays Bussy d’Ambois (1607) and The Revenge of Bussy d’Ambois (1613) and Alexandre Dumas to write La Dame de Monsoreau (1846).

The Massacre at Paris

Marlowe has Montsoreau appear in three scenes ([Scene 6], [Scene 8], [Scene 9]) as a retainer of Anjou and Guise. In [Scene 8] he shoots Seroun, although his murderer was a man called Monsorel.¹

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1. Varamundus (1573)↩︎

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