A Woman Killed With Kindness

As with many Early Modern plays, the Prologue sets the tone of the play, preparing the audience for what they are about to see. Heywood uses the Prologue to emphasize the work’s everyday subject matter, as distinct from the lofty political stakes of many traditional tragedies. However, Heywood encourages the audience to participate in elevating the play’s more domestic concerns to high art via a series of juxtaposed images, as in, “Our course fare, banquets; our thin water, wine” (137). Heywood ends his Prologue by expressing confidence that the audience will grant his request, as “gentle thoughts, when they may give the foil / Save them that yield, and spare where they may spoil” (137). Besides giving the audience some idea of what to expect (and excusing any failings of its own in the process—a common device in theater of the era), this lays the groundwork for thematic consideration of The Limitations of Forgiveness Following Betrayal. Heywood implicitly aligns the audience with Frankford, whose “gentle thoughts” lead him to show mercy, and yet the question of whether such mercy is in fact actual kindness will dog the play.

The first act introduces the characters of the play, as well as the dominant theme of Social Judgment, Legal Consequences, and Moral Regulation. The discussion of the circumstances of Francis and Anne’s births characterizes Francis as potentially hotheaded—the product of his father’s reckless youth. This proves true when he starts a fight after losing a wager, leading to a brawl in which Charles kills Francis’s falconer and huntsman. Charles accepts the punishment for this; even though Francis struck the first blow, Charles accepts that he is the only person who took any lives, laying down his arms to accept his arrest. This establishes Charles’s strong sense of honor, but this “justice” enjoys little public support. Even the Sheriff admits, “I’m sorry that the blood of innocent men / Should be of you exacted” (149), implying that he sympathizes with Charles’s position in the fight. Charles responds by noting his former supporters, saying, “I came into the field with many friends” (149), indicating the social acceptance of Charles’s willingness to take up the fight against Francis. 

Act I also introduces the central figures in the play’s other storyline: Frankford and Anne, who appear in the context of a discussion of Marriage and Gender Roles in a Patriarchal Society. Though Charles proposes an “equality” to the match based on the fact that Frankford and Anne are “both / Scholars, both young, both […] descended nobly” (141), the overarching discussion reveals the different expectations for men and women in marriage. Francis frames Anne as property to be transferred among men, with Francis asking to “borrow” Anne’s hand “that but this day / Was given [Frankford] in the church” (139). Meanwhile, Charles commends Frankford only on “hav[ing] a wife […] with such ornaments / Both of mind and body” (139), implying that her function is largely to adorn her husband’s life. Anne conforms to norms surrounding virtuous female behavior by effacing her own beauty, saying it is valuable only insofar as it pleases her husband. Francis praises her submissive demeanor, saying Anne only needs to be “Pliant and duteous in [her] husband’s love” (140). There is no corresponding discussion of Frankford’s role or obligations in the marriage, and while the play appears to endorse this asymmetry, there is enough ambiguity to support multiple interpretations regarding the male characters’ treatment of the female ones.