Some argue for execution, others for clemency, while Leicester ingeniously suggests that Mary should live “in the shadow of the axe”. But the greatest scene shows Elizabeth beset by contradictory arguments about Mary’s fate. On the face of it this is a romantic tragedy about two warring queens, Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart. No one understood better than Schiller the devious machinations of politics. Yet Lope’s ultimate endorsement of monarchical authority suggests that even popular protest, here led by women, is tinged with historical irony. Their joint cry of “Fuenteovejuna did it” is a momentous tribute to the power of collective action. When a brutally rapacious military commander is killed, the inhabitants of a Spanish village are tortured to disclose the name of his murderer. This is world drama’s “I am Spartacus” moment.
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