Rogers demanded the part, and on being refused set about to make things as unpleasant as possible for her detested rival.

Friends of the disappointed actress packed Drury Lane when the "Distressed Mother" was performed, and the appearance of Oldfield was made the signal for a riot.

Royal messengers and guards were sent to put an end to the disorder, but the play had to be stopped for that night.
Colley, who had ever an eye to the pounds, shillings and pence, was disgusted at what he chose to call an exhibition of low malevolence.
"We have been forced," he says, "to dismiss an audience of a hundred and fifty pounds, from a disturbance spirited up by obscure people, who never gave any better reason for it, than that it was their fancy to support the idle complaint of one rival actress against another, in their several pretentious to the chief part in a new tragedy.

But as this tumult seem'd only to be the Wantonness of _English_ Liberty, I shall not presume to lay any further censure upon it." Finally the combined charms of Oldfield and the "Distressed Mother" triumphed, and young beaux who had helped to swell the riot were glad to come back meekly to Drury Lane and extol the attractions of Andromache.

In the play itself Nance must have been all that the troublous part suggested, but it was when she tripped on gaily and gave the humorous epilogue that the house found her most delightful.
She, who could reign so imperially in tragedy, had glided back to her better-loved kingdom of comedy, and what cared her captivated hearers if this self-same epilogue made an inharmonious ending to a serious play.