‘TRANSLATING’ HISTORY FOR THE STAGE IN HENRY VIII AND APUS DE SOARE [SUNSET]

Abstract

The second half of the fifteenth century seems to have finally brought, in different corners of
Europe, the long waited for political stability that would engender further societal changes
and cultural developments traditionally associated with the Renaissance. In England, for
instance, the crisis of royal power resulting from incessant warfare involving the houses of
York and Lancaster and entailing political instability at the national level was put an end to by
Henry VII, the founder of the Tudor line that would successfully rule England for more than
one century. At approximately the same time, in another part of Europe, in Moldavia, the
same kind of civil strife turned members of the Muşatin family one against the other in a
constant rush for power which occasionally led to short-lived basking in royal privileges only
to be soon lost in favour of another pretender to the throne.