A Fair Quarrel

The play was originally performed by Prince Charles's Men, the company to which Rowley belonged at the time, and the title page of both quartos states that it was "acted before the King".

The rule is not rigidly applied, however; in The Changeling, Rowley composed the play's opening and closing scenes as well as the subplot, so that the shares of the two writers are roughly equal.

In A Fair Quarrel, Middleton as usual handles the main plot, and subplot materials are the work of Rowley.

[5] This division is generally accepted by the scholarly consensus, with some occasional and minor dissent; Edward Engelberg assigned part of Act III, scene ii to Middleton instead of Rowley.

Links and commonalities with a range of other contemporary dramas, including Middleton's collaboration with John Fletcher, The Nice Valour, place A Fair Quarrel in a larger context of literary and theatrical interrelationships.

The scene begins with a soliloquy by a wealthy citizen named Russell, who is concerned about the marriage of his only child, his daughter Jane.

Jane has been courted by a young man named Fitzallen; the couple want to marry, but Russell is unhappy about his prospective son-in-law's lack of fortune – and he has developed a scheme to thwart the marriage.

Russell has a double connection to the soldiers: Captain Ager is his nephew, and the troop's Colonel is a kinsman to Fitzallen.

Russell intervenes again, and prevails on the soldiers to turn their swords over to him; the Colonel, wary of spoiling Fitzallen's marital prospects, agrees, as does the more level-headed Captain Ager.

The hot-headed Colonel vents his anger at Russell and his relations – and in the process he gives Captain Ager the ultimate insult, calling him a "son of a whore."

But when it becomes clear to Lady Ager that her son will fight a duel with the Colonel, she confesses a mysterious past indiscretion.

Jane, too shy to confess her situation to the Physician, speaks instead to his sister Anne; the two women become allies as a result.

Her father enters, and introduces the rich prospective husband he has picked out for Jane: it is Chough, a crude and offensive fool.