This sketch promises, it will be observed, not a political tragedy, but, as Schiller himself afterwards phrased it, a 'domestic tragedy in a royal household'. Springing up from the same soil and at the same time as 'Cabal and Love', it was to be much the same sort of play. In both a pair of high-minded lovers belonging together by natural affinity, but separated by artificial barriers; the rights of passion battling in the one case with social prejudice, in the other with the law of Rome and the malice of courtiers; in both a court plot against the lovers; the hero beset by a fair sinner who receives him in her private room, lays siege to him, and is angered by the slighting of her love; in both a tyrannical and headstrong father at enmity with his son. Of the political ideas which the world associates with 'Don Carlos' there is here no adumbration. We hear nothing of the Netherlanders, nor of the Inquisition, nor of the rights of man. Posa is only a friend of Carlos, not the ambassador of all mankind, and there is no room for his golden dreams of philanthropic statesmanship. And yet it is worth noticing that in three points (all in the third act) Schiller adds to his French source: Carlos's ambition was to waken and prevail over his love, Posa was to sacrifice himself, and the lovers were to rise superior to their passion. However, no sooner did our playwright address himself seriously to his task than his imagination began to break over the bounds he had set for it. Even at Bauerbach, as his letters show, his mind was occupied with the thought of 'avenging mankind' by scourging the gloomy despotism of Philip, the monstrous cruelty of Alva, the dark intrigues of the Jesuits and the hideous crimes of the Inquisition. That he made any progress in the spring of 1783, further than to cogitate upon his general plan and to fall in love with his hero, is not probable; nor do his Mannheim letters allude to 'Don Carlos' until June, 1784. In a letter of that date he assures Dalberg,--mindful of that good man's trials in connection with 'Cabal and Love',--that the new play will be 'anything but a political piece'. Whatever could offend the feelings was to be strictly avoided. August 24 he writes that 'Don Carlos' is a 'splendid, subject', especially for himself. Four great characters, Carlos, Philip, the queen, and Alva (no mention of Posa) open before him a boundless field. He cannot forgive himself for having tried to shine in the bourgeois drama, where another may easily surpass him (this in allusion to Iffland), whereas in historical tragedy he need fear no rival. He adds that he is now fairly master of the iambic form and that the verse cannot fail to impart splendor and dignity.