She tries to woo Count Frederick's obsequious assistant Pendant – much to his horror – but he persuades her instead that Sir Abraham will be stupid enough to fall for her and accept the baby as his.

The Children of the Queen's Revels moved from their home at Blackfriars to the nearby Whitefriars when the London theatres reopened in winter 1609-10 after a long period of closure because of the plague.

[7] Though there are no contemporary records of the play's original reception, the fact that it was selected for Court performance alongside works by established playwrights suggests it must have been a success.

Field had performed in many of Chapman's plays including Bussy D'Ambois, All Fools, The Gentleman Usher, May Day, Monsieur D'Olive, Sir Giles Goosecap, The Widow's Tears and Eastward Ho!

[10] A Woman is a Weathercock was among the Jacobean plays revived by the Duke's Company at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1667 when the London theatres reopened 18 years after their closure at the start of the English Civil War.

Commentators like Peery have called A Woman is a Weathercock a remarkable achievement for a first-time dramatist who was not yet 22 – and ascribed this to the practical experience Field had amassed performing on the stage since the age of 11 or 12.

[11] Collier said: "A Woman is a Weathercock and its sequel Amends for Ladies are the productions of no ordinary poet: in comic scenes Field excels Massinger ... and in those of a serious character he may be frequently placed on a footing of equality.

Brinkley said Field knew instinctively how to cater to the taste of the audiences at the indoor theatres with a satire that featured much music, a masque, rowdy scenes, bawdiness, and quick-witted comic repartee – the type of play he had taken part in so many times as a boy actor.

It noted that the role of Mistress Wagtail "was considered too Elizabethan altogether and had been bodily removed from the cast, but Mr Harry Gribble as Sir Abraham Ninny, who ought to have married her, found his way into his audience's heart".

[16] In 2013 A Woman is a Weathercock was performed by an all-boys company from Pocklington School at the Merchant Adventurers' Hall, York, on 27 and 28 November in a production described as the first staged since the 17th century "in the style of the original players, with a cast the same age as the originals, with the actors making lots of decisions, with the audience on three sides, with live music and song and without special lighting or any technology".