Believe as You List

Believe as You List is a Caroline era tragedy by Philip Massinger, famous as a case of theatrical censorship.

The play originally dealt with the legend that Sebastian of Portugal had survived the battle of Alcácer Quibir, and the efforts of Philip II of Spain to suppress the "false Sebastians." On 11 January 1631, Sir Henry Herbert, the Master of the Revels, noted in his records that he refused to license the play because "it did contain dangerous matter, as the deposing of Sebastian, king of Portugal, by Philip the Second, and there being a peace sworn between the kings of England and Spain." To avoid the censor, Massinger was obliged to move the setting of his play to the ancient world, substituting ancient Rome for Spain and a Seleucid King Antiochus for Sebastian.

The revised play was licensed by the Master of the Revels on 6 May 1631, and was premiered the next day, 7 May, by the King's Men. (If the play was intended for the winter season, it was meant for the Blackfriars Theatre. The troupe's summer season at the Globe Theatre is thought to have begun in May, and the play may have been staged there instead.)

In place of the genuine contemporary history of Sebastian, Massinger had to concoct a substitute story in the ancient world. He imagined Antiochus III the Great as having been completely defeated by the Romans in the Battle of Thermopylae (191 BC), to the point of losing his throne and becoming an exile and a wanderer (something far from the actual truth). Antiochus's career in the play resembles that of Hannibal after the Second Punic War: Antiochus travels from state to state around the Mediterranean, looking for sanctuary and support; but the Romans manage to bully or bribe potential allies into rejecting him, until he has nowhere to turn.

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