Dating from 1787 and 1800 respectively, one play was written immediately before the French Revolution, the other in its aftermath. Both dramatized periods of crisis in sixteenth-century Europe, and in doing so reflect Schiller's passionate engagement with the great themes of his own age - justice, power, freedom of conscience. legitimacy of government.These new translations into blank verse are accurate, elegant, and playable. Theintroduction, notes, and chronology set the plays in their cultural and intellectual background, while a family tree explains the historical relationship between Don Carlos and Mary Stuart.