It is a sequel to Shakespeare's plays Henry IV, Part 2 and The Merry Wives of Windsor.

Its main storyline involves an embittered Falstaff being drawn into a plot to kill Henry V of England.

The second version, staged in 1766, drops the serious plot and expands the roles of the comic characters, becoming a farce about their plans to marry into money.

characters derived from The Merry Wives of Windsor are marked (MW); those from the Henry IV plays are marked (H.IV) Smarting from his dismissal from Hal's presence, Falstaff meets up with Doll Tearsheet and Mistress Quickly, who have bribed their way free of jail.

Shallow consults lawyer Mr. Pleadwell, but is advised that legal attempts to get his money will fail.

Scroop and the Earl of Cambridge plan to kill Henry and place Edmund Mortimer on the throne.

He ponders his options as, unaware of the plot, his new wife expresses excitement at the thought of meeting the king.

Falstaff says he is too old to join in the French war, and wishes only to retire - as long as the king will give him some more money.

Disguised as Spanish swordsman "Anticho del Pistolo", Pistol impresses Shallow with his swordsmanship.

Nym has an idea that they can trick Shallow and Slender into believing that Doll and Quickly are two well-known wealthy women, whom they resemble.

The women will then pretend to fall in love with the two squires, knowing that the greedy Shallow and Slender will seize the chance to marry them.

Falstaff wins over Ursula, while Quickly and Doll adopt airs of demure gentility, convincing Shallow and Slender of their fake identities.

Shallow repeatedly stabs Falstaff but fails to penetrate his body, breaking his sword.

By contriving that the marriage will be at a masquerade, Shallow and Slender manage to switch places with Pistol and Nym, who marry Quickly and Doll.

Pistol, Quickly, Doll and Nym accept their fate, and Falstaff invites everyone to the marriage feast.

The play was one of several adaptations of Shakespeare centring on the character of Falstaff, but is "the most remarkable" of them according to critic Adam Hansen.

[2] Hansen describes the first version of the play as "an ingenious exploitation of some hints and inconsistencies in the Shakespearean original".

In particular Kenrick picks up on the hint that Hal has a relationship with Poins' sister, who is portrayed in Falstaff's Wedding as the king's "quondam mistress".

He wrote that, The success, which a juvenile sketch of this Play hath met with in publication, having induced the Author to bring it on the stage; he flatters himself the alterations, which were thought necessary to accommodate it to a theatrical audience, will not give less satisfaction to the reader than such scenes as he was obliged on that account to reject.

The original version of the play was dedicated to the best-known Falstaff of the era James Quin.

When the revised version was performed in 1766, the title role was played by James Love, who was also a well-known Falstaff.

[6] Though not a major success, the play was very significant in the process of expanding the imaginary world created in Shakespeare's Henry IV plays, especially by creating the characters of Eleanor Poins and Mistress Ursula, both of whom are only mentioned in passing in the original.

White's friend Charles Lamb considered it to be "full of goodly quips and rare fancies, 'all deftly masked like hoar antiquity'—much superior to Dr. Kenrick's Falstaff 's Wedding.