Anything for a Quiet Life is a Jacobean stage play, a city comedy written by Thomas Middleton and John Webster.
[1] Yet while Middleton's distinctive style is clearly present in some portions of the text, there are other sections that suggested to some critics the presence of a second hand.
[3] David Lake, in his study of authorship questions in Middleton's canon, confirms the presence of Webster's hand, and gives the following breakdown for the respective shares of the two writers.
Lady Cressingham tells her husband that she has heard about a land-deal: he should sell his estates and in return buy new land worth more.
George enters to say that Mistress Camlet will never trouble her husband again: enraged at the continuing presence of the children, she has left home to stay with her cousin, Knavesbe, and insists that she wants a divorce.
Young Cressingham must also sign the bill of sale, and he laments at selling the inheritance; he brings in his two younger siblings (back from the Camlets') to sway their father's heart.
Sir Francis, moved, refuses to sign; Lady Cressingham enters and flies into a rage, insisting that the lands be sold and new ones bought in Ireland.
But it is all a plot; George has arranged for Margarita (the French bawd of Act III) to pose as Camlet's new bride.
Act V Young Cressingham goes to his father's house, where Sir Francis is miserable: he has sold his land as his wife wanted and now he is treated like a child, given a meagre allowance.
Young Cressingham accuses his stepmother of ruining the family; she is bold and laughs at him, and says, mysteriously, that hereafter she will treat him quite differently.
Meanwhile, Knavesby claims his reward from Lord Beaufort, only to be told that his wife did not fulfil the bargain, that she has instead run off with his page.
Lady Cressingham then enters and announces that she has only been testing her husband with her feigned shrewishness and avarice; she wanted to teach him to be wise and thrifty.