Egerton MS 2828

'Beleeve as you List' (1631) by Philip Massinger was never published, and this is the only original text that survives. It is also of particular interest for three other reasons. The text of the play is in Massinger's own hand (ff 4r-27v). It was the copy allowed by the Master of the Revels, Sir Henry Herbert, whose allowing it to be performed, dated 6 May 1631, is written at the end of the play (f. 27v). It was also in some measure the working copy used by the King's Company who performed the play. The title-page, the prologue and epilogue, stage entrances and exits other business, names of actors in the margins and the props for the actors, and some of the emendations to the text, have all been identified as in the hand of Edward Knight, book-keeper of the King's Men company. The manuscript is somewhat damaged around the corners, and f. 5 (that is, the third and fourth pages) has been largely torn away. Given that a few lines on that page have been marked as 'buried', almost certainly by Herbert, this may not be accidental.

The volume has been rebound: the old vellum cover (now ff. 2r-3v) is part of a lease by Nicholas Fuller, of London, esquire to Thomas Jones and Judith his wife of a tenement in the parish of St Giles Cripplegate, London, for 30 years (dated 7 Oct. 37 Eliz. [1595]).

The play had a somewhat chequered history. It was originally written about the Spanish conquest of Portugal following the defeat of King Sebastian I in 1578, and the Spanish pursuit of a pretender who claimed to be the dead king. It was submitted to the Master of the Revels, Sir Henry Herbert, who on 11 Jan 1631 'did refuse to allow of a play of Messinger's, because itt did contain dangerous matter, as the deposing of Sebastian king of Portugal, by Philip the [second], and ther being a peace sworen twixte the kings of England and Spayne'. He also noted that he had had his fee for reading the book. (The Control and Censorship of Caroline Drama: The Records of Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels, 1623-1673, ed. by N.W. Bawcutt [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 171-72. The revised text moved the story safely back to the ancient world, as Antiochus King of Lower Asia was pursued by the implacable power of the Roman Republic. Occasional slippages from the original manuscript occasionally are to be found: for instance, on f. 9r 'Dom Sebastian' becomes 'King Antiochus' and on f. 13r 'Sebastian' is crossed out and replaced by 'Antiochus'. Herbert allowed the new version on 6 May and licensed it on 7 May. Even in the revised form, without the overt anti-Spanish storyline, the play may have had a contemporary bite: the case of Prusias, the well-meaning King of Bithynia and his letting down of Antiochus, might be reminiscent of King Charles I and his exiled brother-in-law, the Elector Palatine, Frederick V.

The manuscript's history before the 19th-century is obscure but includes its having been rescued from a rubbish-heap. One plausible suggestion is that as the property of the King's Company it passed to Henry Killigrew and hence to the Drury Lane Theatre. William Rufus Chetwood (d. 1766), prompter at Drury Lane for many years, evidently saw it, referring to the play and Herbert's licence in his The British Theatre (Dublin, 1750), p. 42. It may then have found its way into the possession of David Garrick from the archives of Drury Lane. It was found by Samuel Beltz (whose brother George had been executor to David Garrick's widow) among a 'mass of rubbish'. In 1844 Beltz sent it to Thomas Crofton Croker, who edited it for the Percy Society (1849). The manuscript was subsequently in the possession of James Orchard Halliwell, later Halliwell-Phillipps (Secretary of the Percy Society). In 1857 he exchanged the manuscript with the Reverend Thomas Corser for 16 leaves of the original edition of Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece. In 1870 it was sold by Sotheby's (sale-cat. 12 July, 1870, lot 366) to Edward Woolford James, a Greenwich book-collector. It was acquired by Henry Newnham Davis and bought at Sotheby's (27 Nov 1900, lot 191) by the British Museum for £69 out of the Farnborough Fund.

Contents:

f. 1r: Historical note by John Orchard Phillips and other later notes pasted in.

ff. 2r-3v: The original vellum cover, from the indenture for a 30 year lease on a tenement in St Giles Cripplegate, London, between Nicholas Fuller and Thomas Jones and Judith his wife, 1595.

f. 2r: Title-page: 'A newe playe Called Beleeve as you List written by Mr Massinger May 6th 1631'. this was probably written by Edward Knight. 'A Tragedy' written below, is in another hand.

ff. 4r-27v: The play (in the hand of Philip Massinger).

f. 27v: Note by Sir Henry Herbert, Master of the Revels, allowing its performance.

f. 28v: The prologue (probably in the hand of Edward Knight).

f. 29r: The epilogue (probably in the hand of Edward Knight).

f. 29v: Props for actors, mainly writings and notes (probably in the hand of Edward Knight).