ABSTRACT

There are few moments in Renaissance drama more surprising to audiences and readers than Master Frankford’s sudden reference to his children in Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness. Immediately after discovering his wife Anne in bed with her lover Wendoll, Frankford exclaims

Go bring my infants hither. Exit MAID and returns with TWO CHILDREN. O Nan, O Nan, If either fear of shame, regard of honour, The blemish of my house, nor my dear love, Could have withheld thee from so lewd a fact, Yet for these infants, these young harmless souls, On whose white brows thy shame is charactered, And grows in greatness as they wax in years – Look but on them, and melt away in tears. Away with them, lest as her spotted body Hath stained their names with stripe of bastardy, So her adulterous breath may blast their spirits, With her infectious thoughts. Away with them! (13.114-125).1