ABSTRACT
Williams, in a letter to the Privy Council, recounts an anecdote about Marshall Biron the father:
Here are the main traits that Chapman drew upon to bring together in the Byron plays manual concepts of leadership and the actions of military leaders in the French campaigns of the 1590s. In its textual retelling, the anecdote assumes the value placed upon advice, independence, accumulation of honours, experience, loyalty to one's prince and the necessity of experienced advice to monarchs from specialists in military strategy. In the figure of the Byron that fumed and fretted upon the London stage in 1608, Chapman also demonstrates the disastrous consequences when lack of a curb on proper ambition transforms it into overweening and traitorous pride. As such his two plays come together with Northumberland's (and Essex's) preoccupations in a debate about baronial versus royal power based on concepts of honour.238 In addition, they
provide a topical discussion of the definition and limits to the power of a highborn general in relation to the claims and responsibilities of a royal commander towards those he appoints as his aides and the executors of his military strategies onto the field of battle. As such they form part of the story of Byron's rebellion against his monarch Henri IV and weave together into a dense and intricate pattern the prescriptive literature on the market in the 1590s with contemporary and present-day narratives about the English actions and the high command.
