When I wrote my note upon Long Meg of Westminster, I was not aware of the following passage in Fuller's Worthies (Westminster, edit. 1662, p. 236.):
"As long as Megg of Westminster.—This is applyed to persons very tall, especially if they have hop-pole-height, wanting breadth proportionable thereunto. That such a gyant-woman ever was in Westminster, cannot be proved by any good witness (I pass not for a late lying pamphlet), though some in proof thereof produce her gravestone on the south-side of the cloistures, which (I confess) is as long, and large, and entire marble as ever I beheld. But be it known, that no woman in that age was interred in the cloistures, appropriated to the sepultures of the abbot and his monkes. Besides, I have read in the records of that Abby of an infectious year, wherein many monkes dyed of the plague, and were all buried in one grave; probably in this place, under this marble monument. If there be any truth in the proverb, it rather relateth to a great gun, lying in the tower, commonly call'd Long Megg; and in troublesome times (perchance upon ill May day in the raigne of King Henry the eighth), brought to Westminster, where for a good time it continued. But this Nut (perchance) deserves not the cracking."
Grose, in his Provincial Glossary, inserts among the Local Proverbs, "As Long as Megg of Westminster," with the following note:—
"This is applied to very tall slender persons. Some think it alluded to a long gun, called Megg, in troublesome times brought from the tower to Westminster, where it long remained. Others suppose it to refer to an old fictitious story of a monstrous tall virago called Long Megg of Westminster, of whom there is a small penny history, well known to school-boys of the lesser sort. In it there are many relations of her prowess. Whether there ever was such a woman or not, is immaterial; the story is sufficiently ancient to have occasioned the saying. Megg is there described as having breadth in proportion to her height. Fuller says, that the large grave-stone shown on the south side of the cloister in Westminster Abbey, said to cover her body, was, as he has read in an ancient record, placed over a number of monks who died of the plague, and were all buried in one grave; that being the place appointed for the sepulture of the abbots and monks, in which no woman was permitted to be interred."—Edit. 1811, p. 207.
I shall not enter into the question, as to whether any "tall woman" of "bad repute" was or was not buried in the cloisters of Westminster, as it is very likely to turn out, upon a little inquiry, that the original "long Meg" was a "great gun," and not a creature of flesh and blood.
"Long Meg" is also the name of a large gun preserved in the castle of Edinburgh; and, what is somewhat extraordinary, the great bombard forged for the siege of Oudenarde, in 1382, now in the city of Ghent, is called by the towns-people "Mad Meg."
A series of stones, situated upon an eminence on the east side of the river Eden, near the village of Little Salkeld, are commonly known as "Long Meg and her Daughters."
These notices, at any rate, are suggestive, and may be the means of elucidating something perhaps more worth the knowing.
EDWARD F. RIMBAULT.