It was premiered on the stage by the King's Company at their Vere Street theatre, formerly Gibbon's Tennis Court, on February 5, 1663.
(Harbage made this argument regarded two plays connected with the Dryden canon, The Wild Gallant and The Mistaken Husband.
)[2] Harbage noted that in The Wild Gallant Lady Constance fakes a pregnancy with a pillow under her dress, just as Annabelle does in Brome's The Sparagus Garden.
Dryden composed a set of verses addressed to Lady Castlemaine, the mistress of King Charles II, crediting her with "encouraging" this early play.
The play was first published in 1669, in a quarto printed by Thomas Newcomb for the bookseller Henry Herringman.