I.i: Bussy is a poor but honorable gentleman soldier, down on his luck. Monsieur, the king's brother, meets Bussy on the street. Monsieur is seeking noble, ambitious men for his entourage. Monsieur hopes to be king one day. Monsieur sends Maffé to Bussy with one thousand crowns so that Bussy can attire himself for the court. Maffé, a foolish courtier, thinks that Bussy is some poet or fool that has pleased Monsieur, and he determines to give Bussy only one hundred of the crowns. Bussy, however, knows Monsieur has "a lighter hand" and convinces Maffé to give him the other nine hundred crowns, after which Bussy cuffs Maffé and earns Maffés enmity.

I.ii: In court Henry III compares his French court to England's court. Guise refers to "their old queen" and flouts the English belief that she is "an ever young and most immortal goddess." Henry agrees that the English are too impressed with the French court's fashions, but he also says that the English court is a better court underneath its gaudy trappings. He suggests that the French court is festering and corrupt.

Monsieur enters with D'Ambois, whom Henry recognizes as a man he would gladly have favored first. D'Ambois is a rough courtier. When he oversteps his bounds with the Duchess, her husband (Guise) takes exception-but no amount of cajoling or threatening can dissuade D'Ambois from his courting. It only seems to galvanize him to it. Not even his patron Monsieur can order him to leave his courting. Three French courtier-soldiers, L'Anou, Barrisor, and Pyrhot, joke about this "ass in lion's skin." When D'Ambois takes exception, Brisac and Melynell take his side against the three. The six men go out to duel.

II.i: A Nuntius comes to Henry III to tell him of the duel. The king cannot officially condone it, but he is interested in it nonetheless. D'Ambois kills Barrisor, L'Anou kills Brisac for which D'Ambois kills L'Anou, and Pyrhot and Melynell kill one another. Only D'Ambois survived to leave the field-and he was unwounded. D'Ambois and Monsieur enter; Monsieur asks the king to forgive D'Ambois. The king pardons D'Ambois. Guise is not happy with the pardon and believes D'Ambois no better than a murderer.

II.ii: Monsieur is rebuffed coldly in his wooing of Tamyra, Montsurry's wife. She claims she is too virtuous to countenance any such liaisons. Additionally, she doesn't like the look of Monsieur. Monsieur gives her a pearl necklace in the hope that she will alter some day and favor his suit to her. Montsurry enters after Monsieur leaves, and Tamyra tells him of Monsieur's dishonorable treatment of her. Montsurry accepts the news with resignation, saying that the prince has much liberty because he is the prince and cannot be challenged. Tamyra confesses aside that she is in love with another man. She uses her husband's absence that night to arrange her liaison. She orders her maid, Pero, to lock all doors and sleep away from her that night. Pero is suspicious and plans secretly to spy on her mistress.

When Tamyra is alone, the trap door opens, and the friar leads D'Ambois into Tamyra's chamber. The friar knows what is going to happen but advises D'Ambois to let the woman dissemble-as women are wont to do. Let her believe he has come to satisfy her conscience on the matter of the duel. Barrisor was her lover, and had given her a letter written in his blood. D'Ambois is to pretend that he knew nothing of Barrisor's love for her, but fought only in her honor-this is the surest way to her bed. When Tamyra enters, the friar retires. D'Ambois follows the friar's advice and she takes him to her bed.

III.i: As the lovers, Tamyra and D'Ambois, part, D'Ambois calms her fears that her honor is compromised by saying he will fight to keep her name clear. She gives him Monsieur's necklace as a love token. The friar is summoned to take D'Ambois back-Tamyra pretends that the friar could have stayed, and acts as though she is sorry he did not (dissembling to him that nothing happened between she and Bussy). Montsurry returns and is surprised to see his wife up so early in the morning and dressed. She says she had never undressed for bed-that she couldn't sleep while he was away. Montsurry brings the news that D'Ambois is now the favorite of the king and is out of Monsieur's direct patronage. Now both Monsieur and Guise envy and hate D'Ambois. Montsurry will take Tamyra to court to see the great man D'Ambois.

III.ii: The king likens D'Ambois to his eagle, the scourge of his land, who will wipe out all corruption. When D'Ambois suggests he might start at Guise's house, an argument erupts, which the king calms. He makes D'Ambois and Guise swear to be amicable.

When D'Ambois and Tamyra meet in court they feign that they don't know each other-Tamyra pretends not to like him much. Meanwhile Guise and Monsieur plot the eventual downfall of D'Ambois. They mean to pay the maids of great ladies in court to spy upon their mistresses until D'Ambois's lover is discovered (whom they have no doubt he must have). They plan to use that lover to trap D'Ambois. Monsieur tells Montsurry that he has already paid Pero to watch Tamyra, but Montsurry is confident that that money has been wasted on his virtuous wife. Pero takes Monsieur aside and tells him of D'Ambois's visit the night before. Monsieur is overjoyed to learn that Tamyra not only is not the paragon of virtue she pretends to him that she is. D'Ambois is her lover. Monsieur may thus avenge two insults at once by catching D'Ambois with Tamyra. Monsieur suggests to Montsurry that Tamyra is D'Ambois's lover, but Montsurry laughs off the suggestion as preposterous.

D'Ambois accosts Monsieur, who is alone and waiting for Montsurry and Guise to arrive so they may plan their trap for D'Ambois. Monsieur feigns friendship for him still. Monsieur asks Bussy to do him a favor. Bussy says he will do anything for him except kill the king. Monsieur asks Bussy what he really thinks of him, but Bussy will not answer until Monsieur tells him what he thinks of him. Monsieur says he thinks D'Ambois is headstrong and bloody, a slave, cutthroat, Judas, slanderer, and a blasphemer who will do anything except kill the king. He says he has said all to prove himself a friend, not a base flatterer.

In return Bussy says he thinks Monsieur is the fountainhead of all corruption in France. Monsieur thanks him like a friend and they go off to supper together.

IV.i: Monsieur hints to Tamyra that he knows the truth about her and D'Ambois. He asks D'Ambois what he thinks of a jest whereby he might tell Montsurry that he is a cuckold. D'Ambois answers that the correspondent would certainly be in his rights to run a sword through Monsieur for lying so. When D'Ambois leaves with Henry III, Monsieur tells Montsurry that Tamyra has cuckolded him and offers a letter in proof. Montsurry refuses to read the letter, trusting in his wife's virtue instead. When Montsurry later tells Tamyra about Monsieur's claim, she pretends to faint. Pero comes to her rescue and upbraids Montsurry. Tamyra recovers and tells Montsurry to go read the letter and believe it a forgery of jealous Monsieur. She claims he is seeking revenge because she has rebuffed him. After Montsurry leaves, Tamyra writes a letter to Monsieur in defiance.

IV.ii: D'Ambois has prevailed upon the friar to raise spirits to tell them what the future holds in store. Tamyra enters and sends Pero off with the letter to Monsieur. Behemoth and Cartophlax along with other demons are summoned. Cartophlax is sent to retrieve the letter Monsieur has, but is prevented by a greater spirit Monsieur has raised, Fate. Behemoth produces a vision of Monsieur, Guise, and Montsurry in another room reading the paper. Montsurry is convinced. When Pero enters with Tamyra's paper Montsurry stabs her. She does not die, but is sent to Monsieur's surgeon.

Behemoth prophesies that D'Ambois will be killed by Tamyra's own hand, the friar by his own. Behemoth promises to return once more when D'Ambois summons him.

V.i: Montsurry drags Tamyra to a writing desk and orders her to write a letter bidding D'Ambois to meet her in her chamber. When she refuses to be part of a plot to ambush her lover, Montsurry wounds her repeatedly with a knife. When she still refuses, he has her stretched on a rack until she agrees to write. She writes the letter in her own blood hoping that it will prove a warning to D'Ambois that she has been tortured to write the letter. The friar, who has tried to prevent Montsurry, stabs himself. Montsurry realizes that the friar was the go-between of Tamyra and D'Ambois.

V.ii: While Monsieur and Guise hide in Tamyra's chamber with murderers, Montsurry disguises himself in the friar's cloak and goes to deliver the letter to D'Ambois.

V.iii: The friar's ghost visits D'Ambois and promises to meet him again in Tamyra's chamber. D'Ambois wonders why the friar is dead and why his ghost should appear without its cloak. He calls for Behemoth to return as promised. Behemoth tells him that the friar is dead indeed and that D'Ambois should not for any reason heed Tamyra's next letter. After Behemoth leaves, D'Ambois determines to answer Tamyra's next summons, that he is not afraid of whatever might come.

When Montsurry enters disguised as the friar, D'Ambois is fooled. He believes that Behemoth lied to him regarding the friar's death and everything else. He goes unsuspectingly with Montsurry.

V.iv: The friar's ghost warns Tamyra of D'Ambois's approach and bids her to yell out a warning when he comes in. Tamyra does warn D'Ambois. Instead of running, however, D'Ambois jumps into the room so not to be attacked while still in the trap door. When the murderers rush out at him, the friar's ghost appears and scares away all but one, whom D'Ambois kills. Montsurry corrals the fleeing murderers and brings them back. D'Ambois fights bravely, but stops at the point of killing Montsurry when Tamyra prays him to spare her husband. When D'Ambois hesitates, he is shot. He refuses to die lying down, but wants to stand like an emperor, as Vespatian would have it, on his feet. He props himself on his sword and forgives his murderers, as the ghost of the friar bids. His dying wish is that Montsurry reconcile with Tamyra. He dies. Montsurry cannot forgive Tamyra, who is mourning the death of D'Ambois, and so banishes her from his house, although he does forgive her.

Henry III has a small part, but he is important as a mouthpiece for Chapman. The sovereign himself sees that France is corrupt.

Monsieur is a typically Machiavellian type. He wants the throne, although he is willing to wait for it to come to him, but he is a plotter in the downfall of D'Ambois and a lecher after Tamyra who will stop at nothing to see his ends met.

Guise is ill spirited (as are L'Anou, Barrisor, and Pyrhot) toward D'Ambois after D'Ambois's first appearance in court. Unlike the gallants, though, the duke cannot (although he wants to) engage D'Ambois in a duel. He must seek his revenge by the Machiavellian approach.

Montsurry is the cuckold revenger. He has no animosity towards D'Ambois beyond the revelation that he is his wife's lover. He accepted the attempted cuckolding by Monsieur well enough because of the prince's position, but actual cuckolding by D'Ambois is another matter.

The friar is an odd character. Although he is a holy man who gives truly religious advice (especially when his ghost entreats D'Ambois to forgive and attempts to have Montsurry act the Christian and forgive his wife), but he is also Tamyra's bawd and dabbles in the black arts by calling demons (which may not be damnable, although Faustus falls because of it and even Friar Bacon gives it up before the end of his play.)

Maffé has some interesting scenes, but little is made of his early enmity for D'Ambois, and he comes finally to represent the corruption of the French court. He is little better than a knave in fop's attire.

Tamyra is the dissembling woman. She lies to Monsieur about her chastity, lies to Montsurry about her fidelity, and even lies to D'Ambois about her previous love affairs, claiming they were platonic.

Tracing the many references to each of the following images can make an interesting study:

1) Lightning 2) Fate / Fortune (the first word of the play is, in fact, "Fortune") 3) Man as a tree