Answer and Explanation:
1. Because she is a woman far ahead of her time, presenting women in positions that were not stimulated in society and that could shock listeners. Her story is about female freedom, wisdom and even sexual freedom and that was not something advocated in women at the time.
2. The king's punishment is for the knight to be executed for having abused a maiden against her will.
3. The queen begs the king for mercy. The irony in this is that no one imagined that the queen would impose a task so that the knight would not be executed, as readers might think that she would intercede for the knight only because she was kind and not a strategist as she proved to be.
4. Bath's wife claims that having the power to dominate is what binds women to men, because by dominating their husbands, women are able to satisfy their desires and enjoy everything that gives them pleasure. What the old woman values most is the loyalty between the couple