Long Meg of Westminster

Anon. (1595)

Historical Records

Henslowe's Diary

F. 11 (Greg I.21)

ye 14 of febreary 1594

……

j

..

Res at longe mege of westmester

……

iijli ixs

File:LongMeg.jpgHenslowe's diary, F. 11 (Henslowe-Alleyn)

F. 11^v (Greg I.22)

ye 20 of febreary 1594	……	Res at longe mege	……	xxxxviijs
ye 29 of febreary 1594	……	Res at lange mege	……	xxxviijs
ye 3 of marche 1594	……	Res at longe mege on sraftusdaye	……	iijli
ye 13 of marche 1594	……	Res at longe mege	……	xxviijs
ye 30 of aprell 1595	……	Res at longe mege	……	xxvijs
ye 1 of maye 1595	……	Res at longe mege	……	ls
ye 13 of maye 1595	……	Res at longe mege	……	xxviijs

F. 12^v (Greg I.24)

ye 19 of June 1595	……	Res at longe mege	……	xxijs
ye 28 of aguste 1594	……	Res at longe mege	……	xvijs
……	……	Res at longe mege	……	xvjs

F. 13 (Greg I.25)

ye 4 of october 1595

……

Res at longe mege

……

xjs

F. 25 (Greg, I.49)

ye 1 of novmber 1596 Res at longe meage	……….……….……….……….……….	xxxxvijs
ye 5 of novmber 1596	Res at longe meage	…………….	vs

F. 25^v (Greg, I.50)

ye 25 of novmber

……….

Res at long meage

……….

xjs

F. 26 (Greg, I.51)

Janewary 1597

..........28

………..

tt at long mege ……….

0 — 07

— 01 —— 30 — 11

Stationers' Records

18 August 1590 (CLIO, 2.559)

Thomas Gubbins	……….	The life of longe MEGG of Westminster Aucthorized vnder
Thomas Newman		the handes of the Bishop of London and Master Warden
		Newberie	vjd

27 August — 31 August 1590 (CLIO, 2.561)

Roger Ward

……….

A Ballad of longe MEG of Westminster.

[no sum]

14 March 1595 (CLIO, 2.293)

John Danter	……….	Entred for his Copie under the handes of bothe the wardens a
		ballad entitled the madd merye pranckes of Long MEGG of
		Westminster		vjd

13 December 1620 (CLIO, 3.44)

Master Pauier	……….	Assigned ouer vnto them by Edward White and by consent of both
and John Wright		the wardens all the estate the said Edward white hath in theis
		twelue copies followinge	……….	vjd
		……….viz
		The history of Long MEG of Westminster

29 April 1634 (CLIO, 4.318)

Master Robert	……….	Assigned ouer vnto him by vertue of a Note vnder the hand and
Bird	……….	seale of John Wright and subscribed by both the wardens all his
		estate right Title and interest in these 6. Copies following	iijs
		……….viz
		The history of Long MEG of Westminster

Theatrical Provenance

The Admiral's players introduced Long Meg of Westminster on 14 February 1595. It was kept in performance through 4 October, thus spanning the spring and fall seasons of 1595. Over that period, it received 12 performances and returned receipts to Henslowe averaging more than 34s. After a hiatus of thirteen months, Long Meg returned to the stage at the Rose on 1 November 1596 for four performances through 28 January 1597; for this short revival, it returned an average of 18s. per performance to Henslowe. Curiously, at its February 1595 debut, Long Meg was marked with "j" in the spot where Henslowe more commonly placed "ne." Long Meg is the only play so marked in Henslowe's playlists. Its story has numerous episodes, but there is no hint of a second part in references to the play.

Probable Genre(s)

Comedy (?) (Harbage); Citizen History ? (while there are comedic moments in the chapbook narrating Long Meg's adventures, there is patriotism too in her support of the king's war as well as a somewhat uncomfortable decline in her fortunes—as her story ages—to her post-war retirement to running a house of questionable repute in Islington)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

Every indication points to the prose tract, The Life of Long Meg of Westminster, as the narrative source of the play. The Gubbins-Newman text registered on 18 August 1590 does not survive in print, nor does the ballad printed within a week. Later printings in 1635 and 1650 do survive, and it is reasonable to assume that they reflect the early narrative well enough. By 1650 the title of the chapbook had changed slightly to The Life and Pranks of Long Meg of Westminster; longer than the 1635 version, the 1650 has other minor differences.

The Life of Long Meg of Westminster (1635)

The earliest surviving copy of Meg's adventures is apparently the edition Robert Bird acquired on 29 April 1634 and subsequently reprinted (1635). The title page carries a lengthy sub-title: "... containing the mad merry pranks she played in her lifetime, not only in performing sundry quarrels with divers ruffians about London but also how valiantly she behaued her self in the wars of Bolloingne" (Life). A preface "To the Gentlemen Readers" recommends Long Meg and her adventures as a pleasant diversion but does not allude a play based on her narrative. Associating the stories with jest books, the preface advertises Meg as "a woman ... of late memory, and well beloued, spoken on of all, and knowne of many" and therefore likely of interest to the reader (Life). Chapter titles of Meg's eighteen adventures (or pranks) are as follows (phrasing for the table of content differs slightly):

1. Containeth where she was borne, how she came vp to London, and how she beate the Carrier.

2. Containing how he placed her in Westminster, and what she did at her placing.

3. Containing how she vsed one of the Vicars of the Church, that sung Masse, and how she made him pay his score.

4. Containing the merry skirmish that was betweene her and Sir James of Castile a Spanish Knight, and what was the end of their combat.

5. Containing the courtesie shee used towards Souldiers, and other men that carried good minds.

6. Containing how she used the Baily of Westminster, that came into her Mistresses house, and arrested one of her friends.

7. Containing how she used Woolner the singing man of Windsor, that was the great eater, and how she made him pay for his breakfast.

8. Containing a merry Iest, how shee met a Nobleman, and how she vsed both him and the watch.

9. Containing how Meg went a shroving, and as shee came home how she fought with the Theeues at S. Iames corner, and helpt Father Willis the Carrier to his hundred Markes again.

10. Containing how Harry the Oastler was presst, how she vsed the Constable and Captaine, and how she tooke press-money to goe to Bulloigne.

11. Containing how she beat the French-men from the walls of Bulloigne, and behaued her self so valiantly, that the King gaue her eight pence a day for her life.

12. Containing the combat shee had with a French-man before the walls of Bulloigne, and what was the issue of the combat.

13. Containing her coming into England, how she was married, and how she behaued herselfe to her husband.

14. Containing a pleasant jest, how she vsed the angry Miller of Epping in Essex.

15. Containing the mad prank shee played with a Water-man of Lambeth.

16. Containing how she kept a house at Islington, and what lawes she had there to be obserued.

17. Containing how she vsed Iames Dickins, that was called huffing Dicke.

18. Containing how she was sick, and visited by a Frier, who enjoyned her penance; and what absolution she gaue him after for his paines.

Meg with her Laundry Paddle

The Life and Death of Long Meg of Westminster (1750)

There are illustrations in various eighteenth-century editions of Long Meg's story (as here, "Meg with her Laundry Paddle" [title page] and "Meg beats the carrier [episode #1]). However, the text was shortened; in the 1750 edition from which these illustrations were taken, episodes #5, #7, #15, !6, and #18 above are missing. Meg's mad pranks, remaining popular, turned up in story collections such as The Ballad-singers Basket. A Choice Collection of Pretty Pennyworths (1750). In such collections, story matter also appropriated for stage plays in the early modern period shared space with Long Meg's exploits (for example, the seven wise masters, John Mandeville, Hercules, and Patient Grissel).

Meg beats Willis the Carrier

References to the Play

Dramatic Literature

Thomas Dekker, Satiromastix, S. R. 11 November 1601; Q1602

The Widow Miniver: "Hang thee patch-pannell, I am none a thy Charing-cross: I scorne to be Crosse to such a scab as thou makst thy self."

Tucca: "No, 'tis thou makst me so, my Long Meg a Westminster, thou breedst a scab, thou — ...

I say Mary Ambree, thou shalt march formost, because Ile marke how broad th'art in the heeles."

III.i.172-4, 232 (Shepherd, I.219, 221)

Thomas Dekker and John Webster, Westward Ho!, S. R. 2 March 1605, Q1607

Sir Gozlin: "What kin art thou to Long-Meg of Westminster? th'art like her."

Mistress Bird-lime: "Some-what a like Sir at a blush, nothing a kin Sir, saying in height of minde, and that she was a goodly Woman."

Gozlin: Mary Anbree, do you not know me? ..."

V.ii (Shepherd, II.349)

Thomas Heywood, Fair Maid of the West, part 1, >1610?, Q1631

Besse (the fair maid): "Me thinkes I have a manly spirit in me

Me thinkes I have a manly spirit in me

In this mans habit."

Clem (Besse’s servant, a drawer of wine): "Now am not I of many mens mindes, for if you should doe me wrong, I should not kill you, though I tooke you pissing against a wall."

Bess: "Me thinkes I could be valiant on the sudden:

And meet a man i'th field.

I could doe all that I have heard discourst

Of Mary Ambree or Westminsters Long-Meg."

Clem: "VVhat Mary Ambree was I cannot tell, but unlesse you were taller you will come short of Long Meg."

Bess: "Of all thy fellowes thee I onely trust,

And charge thee to be secret."

Clem: "I am bound in my Indentures to keepe my Masters secrets, and should I finde a man in bed with you, I would not tell."

(II)

Nathan Field, Amends for Ladies, >1611, Q1618

Grace Seldome (to Moll Cut-Purse): "D'ee heare, you sword and target (to speake

in your owne key) Marie Vmbree, Long-Meg,

Thou that in thy selfe (me think'st) alone

Look'st like a rogue and a whore under a hedge:

Bawd, take your letter with you and begone,

When next you come (my Husband's Constable)

And Bridewell is hard by, y'aue a good wit,

And can conceiue."

II.i.46-53 (Peery, 178 )

Lord Proudly: "What d'ee this afternoon?"

Lord Fee-Simple: "Faith I hate a great mind to see long-megg and the ship at the Fortune."

II.i.151-3 (Peery, 181)

Robert Tailor, The Hog Hath Lost his Pearl, S. R. 23 May 1614, Q1614

Player: " ... but, I pray you, is that small matter done I entreated for?"

Haddit (a gallant): A small matter! you'll find it worth Meg of Westminster, altho; it be but a bare jig."

I.i. (Dodsley, p. 385)

Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, A Fair Quarrel, Q1617

Trimtram: Ever since guns came up: the first was your roaring Meg.

Chough: Meg? Then 'twas a woman was the first roarer.

Trimtram: Ay, afire of her touch-hole, that cost many a proper man's life since that time; and then the lions, they learned it from the gus, living so near 'em; then it was heard to the Bankside, and the bears they began to roar; then the boys got it, and so ever since there have been a company of roaring boys.

Chough: And how long will it last, thinkest thou?

Trimtram: As long as the water runs under London Bridge, or watermen at Westminster stairs.

II.ii.215-26

Non-dramatic Literature

Thomas Nashe, Strange News

Following a musing on Robert Greene and his fate ("He inherited more verities than vices"), Nashe turns to another contemporary (" ... a crow trodden Asse") not worthy of Greene and imagines a conversation and a toast ("this blessed cuppe of sack"), saying to the contemporary, "Yea? thy Muses foot of the twelues; old long Meg of Westminster? Then I trowe thou wilt stride ouer Greenes graue and not stumble: If you doe, wee shall come to your taking vp" (McKerrow, I.288).

Gabriel Harvey, Pierce's Supererogation, 1593
The advertisement in a 19th-century edition of the 1635 Long Meg of Westminster quotes Harvey as follows (Life)

"Phy, long Megg of Westminster would have been ashamed to disgrace her Sonday bonet with her Satterday witt. She knew some rules of decorum: and although she were a lustie bouncing rampe, somewhat like Gallemella, or maid Marian, yet was she not such a roinigh rannell, or such a dissolute gillian-flurtes, as this wainscot-faced Tomboy." (ck pp. 145-6)

Thomas Deloney, The Gentle Craft, 1597? (CLIO, part 1), 1639 (Mann ed.)
In the second part of The Gentle Craft (early date uncertain), Deloney tells the story of Richard Casteler and his two sweethearts, one of whom is Margaret of the Spread Eagle, better known as Long Meg of Westminster. Gartenberg, characterizing Deloney's version, provides a salutary lesson in our assuming that the chapbook was the sole narrative influence on the play. Here is Gartenberg's assessment of Deloney' treatment of the folk figure:

... Meg of the merry pranks is domesticated into an ordinary, rather serious young woman intent upon winning the love of, and marrying, a young apprentice. And Deloney's Meg lacks the resources to best her rival, a girl named Gillian. In the climactic scene both women stand passably in a field awaiting the apprentice, Richard Castelier, only to be disappointed when he fails to appear. Frustrated, they exchange blows. Meg loses the fight—and Castelier. when she hears that he has no intention to marry either Gillian or herself, she engages in a bit of untypical introspection:

"Wherefore is grief good? Can it recall folly past? No. Can it help a matter remediless? No. What then? Can grief make unkind men courteous? No Then wherefore should I grieve? Nay, seeing it is so, hang sorrow! I will never care for them that care not for me."

This soliloquy return Meg to her more customary self-confidence. In the last moments of the tale, turning away from the common lot of women (marriage and children) and going her own way alone, Deloney's Meg becomes the independent woman emancipated from male rule. But the tale ends on a bleak note. Disappointed in love, Meg becomes a soldier, and eventually a woman "common to the call of every man." This was to be only the first association of Meg with prostitution (53).

William Vaughan, Golden Grove, 1600, 1601

Long Meg of Westminster kept always twenty courtesans in her house, whom, by their pictures, she sold to all comers. (qtd by Gartenberg; get original)

William Gamage, "Linsi-Woolsie," 1613, Epigram 99 (EEBO)

All cald thee, long Megge, true; they did not miss;

If broad Megge too, they had not fail'd, I wis.

Ben Jonson, Fortunate Isles 1625 (EEBO)

Nicholas Goodman, Hollands Leaguer, 1632 (EEBO)

In a fanciful narrative about a young woman, Britania Hollandia, starts out innocent and sweet but turns wicked. Her parents send her to the city , where (after her marriage goes poorly) she decides to set up a bawdy house. She hears of a possibly suitable place, "out of the Citie, yet in the view of the Citie, only divided by a delicate Riuer, there was many hand some building, and many hearty neighbours, yet at the first foundation, it was renowned for nothing so much as for the memory of that famous Amazon, Longa Margarita, who had there for many yeeres kept a famous infamous house of open Hospitality"(F).

Edmund Gayton, Pleasant Notes on Don Quixote 1654 (EEBO)
At the end of Gayton's riff on Cervantes' novel, the narrator laments that he could not find the end of Sancho's story (as he has just recounted the end of Don Quixote's), but he did find the workbooks of an old physician (perhaps John Dellues), at the end of which were "some few Epitaphs, Elegies, and fancies, upon Don Quixot, Dulcinea of Toboso, and in the praise of Rosinante and Sancho Pancha (287). The elegy to Dulcinea is by Long Meg of Westminster, speaking herself from the grave:

I Long Meg once, the wonder of the Spinsters,

Was laid, as was my right, i'th'best of Minsters;
Nor have the Wardens ventur'd all this whiles,
To lay, except my selfe, one in those Iles.
Indeed untill this time, ne'r any one
Was worthy to be Megs Companion.
But since Toboso hath so fruitfull been,
To bring forth one might be my Sister-twinne;
Alike in breadth of face, (no Margeries
Had ever wider checks, or larger eyes)
Alike in Shoulders, Belly, and in flancks,
Alike in legs too, (for we had no shancks)
And for our feet, alike from heel to toe,
The Shoomakers the length did never know.
Lye thou by me, no more it shall be common,
One Ile of man there is, this Ile of woman.

Poor Robin's Jests (EEBO)

John Taylor, A Juniper Lecture, 1639

see epigram 6

Mary Tattle-well and Joan Him-him-home, The Woman's Sharp Revenge, 1640

Critical Commentary

Greg cites a few of the stationers' entries that pertain to Meg's story, quotes an allusion to the play in Amends for Ladies, and avers that the "play must have held the stage for a long time" (II.174, item 68).

Gartenberg offers a sustained assessment of Meg's role in popular culture "in which she was assigned such diverse roles as those of a female Robin Hood, patriotic amazon, boon companion to celebrated men, Roaring Girl, brothel keeper—and, finally, heroine of the Reformation, worthy of burial in Westminster Abbey" (49). She summarizes and analyses the episodes in Meg's life, concluding that "this wonder woman, 'famous through England for her doughty deed,' her charity toward the poor and distressed, her hatred of arrogance and hypocrisy, and her irrepressible penchant for merry pranks, was too marvelous a figure to subject to an ending as mundane as death" (52). She evaluates Meg in the context of the literature of "roaring girls," and determines that Meg is "an exemplary figure, her strength, courage and independence standing for their best qualities" (54). Gartenberg conjectures that the association with rougher versions of the roaring girl such as Moll Frith "tarnished Long Meg's reputation" (54). As she points out, though, there was a reaction in Meg's defense, as in the preface to "The Woman's Sharp Revenge" (55). Gartenberg quotes the poem in Gayton's Festive Notes to illustrate the "popular tradition" that Meg was buried in Westminster Abbey, a fiction she hears refuted in Thomas Fuller's protest in Worthies of England that no woman was buried "in the cloisters" (56). Gartenberg notes with delight that as recently as 1977 the Index of the Westminster Abbey Office Guide mentioned the stone slab associated by legend with Long Meg (57).

Waage, comparing Meg with Moll Frith, finds Meg the more appealing figure in part due to the "nostalgic nationalism" of Elizabethan writers for the early Tudor period . Their "idealization of Tudor monarchy" produced a Long Meg who could be associated "with a benevolent and harmonious society, hierarchically ordered, but without serious noble-bourgeois or court-city rivalries" (106). He examines the lives of the characters in detail and decides that both find legitimation "socially and sexually" (116).

Capp has discovered the real Long Meg in records of the Bridewell Hospital Court Books. She was Margaret Barnes (perhaps neé Cleefe), and she appears in the Bridewell records in May 1561: "Margaret Barnes otherwise called Long Megg came into this house the xvii of May for that she was accused to be a comon Bawd and desyred to come to make a purgacion But when she came, the matter was sop vehemently iustified agaynst her, that she could not denye the same and so departed with sham[e] because she was before promysed to go and come safely" (qtd. from Capp, 303). This dark episode with the law fits into the last stage of Meg's adventures. According to the chapbook, she married and took up residence in Islington. Capp cites the marriage of Richard Barnes and Margaret Cleefe recorded in the parish of St. Margaret, Westminster, on 22 November 1551 as evidence of her marriage and the appearance before the Bridewell Court as evidence that her house had indeed become a brothel, as later versions of the narrative indicated. Capp follows the trials of various women associated with Long Meg through the Bridewell Court Books, all the results of which show that the business of the house was not solely victualling.

Gurr, incorporating Waage (above), discusses Long Meg primarily in the context of a London and "citizen" repertory in the playhouses of the Admiral's men (194-5).

Knutson makes a couple of observations about Long Meg in performance: that the part "offered Edward Alleyn a fine part in drag" (122), and that on the afternoons of 28 and 29 August 1595, when Long Meg and Longshanks were performed side by side, the company might have exploited the shared feature of unnatural height by casting Alleyn in these leading roles.

Syme, contesting Gurr's contention that Marlowe's plays were "the beating heart" of the Admiral's repertory (171), discusses the success of Long Meg on stage (505).

For What It's Worth

Mary Umbree (or Ambree) and Moll Frith are often mentioned in the same breath as Long Meg in subsequent literature. See Peery for a representative footnote on Mary (p. 275) and Waage for Moll. These women belong to category of "roaring girls," and scholarship on any one is likely to have a word or more to say about Long Meg. A good starting place is Anthony Dawson's "Mistris Hic & Haec: Representations of Moll Frith," Studies in English Literature 33 (1993): 387-404.

Over a few years in the mid-nineteenth century (1850-2), scholars exchanged opinions in Notes & Queries on the degree of fact and and fiction in the Long Meg narrative. See Capp, 302, n1, for the citations on specific items.

Works Cited

Capp, Bernard. "Long Meg of Westminster: A Mystery Solved." Notes and Queries 45.3 (1998): 301-3.

Dekker, Thomas. The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker. ed. Richard Shepherd. 4 vols. London: J. Pearson, 1873. (Vol. II)

Dodsley, Robert, ed. A Select Collection of Old Plays. 12 vols. London: J. Nichols, 1780. (Vol. 6)

Gamage, William. Linsi-woolsie. Or Two Centuries of Epigrams. 1613. (EEBO)

Gartenberg, Patricia. An Elizabethan Wonder Woman: The Life and Fortunes of Long Meg of Westminster. Journal of Popular Culture 17.3 (1983): 49-58.

Gayton, Edmund. Pleasant Notes upon Don Quixote, 1654.

Goodman, Nicholas. Hollands Leaguer, 1632. (EEBO)

Gurr, Andrew. Shakespeare's Opposites: The Admiral's Company 1594-1625. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Knutson, Roslyn L. "What was James Burbage Thinking???" Thunder at a Playhouse: Essaying Shakespeare and the Early Modern Stage. eds. Peter Kanelos and Matt Kozusko. Selingsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 2010. 116-30.

Life and Death of Long Meg of Westminster, The, 1750.

Life of Long Meg of Westminster, The, 1635. (19thc. ed. of Bird's print)

Middleton, Thomas. Thomas Middleton: The Collected Works. eds. Gary Taylor and John Lavagnino. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007.

Nashe, Thomas. The Works of Thomas Nashe. ed. Ronald McKerrow. 5 vols. London: A. H. Bullen, 1904. (Vol. 1)

Peery, William, ed. The Plays of Nathan Field. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1950. (Field)

Syme, Holger Schott. "The Meaning of Success." Shakespeare Quarterly 61.4 (2010): 490-525.

Waage, Frederick O. "Meg and Moll: Two Renaissance London Heroines." Journal of Popular Culture 20 (1986): 105-17.

Site created and maintained by Roslyn L. Knutson, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; updated 4 March 2012.