as a prisoner waiting for the verdict of her judges. This meant,
however, according to his conception of the tragic art, a pathetic
rather than a tragic situation; for the queen's fate would be a
foregone conclusion, and she could do nothing to avert it. To give her
the semblance of a tragic guilt he resorted to three unhistorical
inventions: First, an attempt to escape, with resulting complicity in
the act of the murderous Catholic fanatic Mortimer; second, a putative
love on the part of Mary for Leicester, who would use his great
influence to bring about a personal interview between her and
Elizabeth; and, finally, the meeting of the two queens, in which
Mary's long pent-up passion would get the better of her discretion and
betray her into a mortal insult of her rival. In reality, however, the
meeting of the two queens, while theatrically very effective, is not
the true climax of the play. That comes when Mary conquers her
rebellious spirit and accepts her ignominious fate as a divinely
appointed expiation for long-past sins. The play thus becomes a
tragedy of moral self-conquest in the presence of an undeserved death.

Next in order came _The Maid of Orleans_, expressly called by its
author a romantic tragedy. It is a "rescue" of the Maid's character.
Shakespeare had depicted her as a witch, Voltaire as a vulgar fraud.
Schiller conceives her as a genuine ambassadress of God, or rather of
the Holy Virgin. Not only does he accept at its face value the
tradition of her "voices," her miraculous clairvoyance, her magic
influence on the French troops; but he makes her fight in the ranks
with men and gives to her a terrible avenging sword, before which no
Englishman can stand. But she, too, had to have her tragic guilt. So
Schiller makes her supernatural power depend--by the Virgin's express
command--on her renunciation of the love of man. A fleeting passion
for the English general Lionel, conceived on the battle-field in the