A mention of "woman antics" in Act III may refer to the performance of Walter Montague's masque The Shepherd's Paradise by Queen Henrietta Maria and her ladies in waiting in January 1633.
[3] The title page of the quarto states that the play was acted by Queen Henrietta's Men at the Cockpit Theatre, and was "received generally well."
Ford largely based the main plot of the play on the life of Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, who murdered his first wife Maria D'Avolos after catching her with her lover.
"[7] Phillippo Caraffa, Duke of Pavia, has accidentally caught sight of a beautiful young woman named Bianca, the daughter of a Milanese gentleman, while he was hunting.
Yet the Duke's close friend Fernando also falls in love with the new duchess; she rejects him at first, but eventually acknowledges similar feelings for him.