The character of Sir Timothy Treat-all is a caricature of the first Earl of Shaftesbury, a founder of the Whig party who had been arrested for high treason in 1681.

[2] The play concerns the "seditious knight" Sir Timothy Treat-all and his rakish Tory nephew Tom Wilding.

Diana cares for Wilding, but after seeing him pursue both Charlot and Lady Galliard, she decides to make an advantageous marriage with the wealthy Treat-all.

Contemporaries singled out The City Heiress as one of Behn's "good" and lucrative comedies, although few modern critics have discussed it at length.

The distinctions are subtle, but it was not merely Behn's sex that made the play offensive to moralizing poets of the 1690s and the first decade of the 18th century.