14 February, 1595 - Long Meg of Westminster

Here's what the Admiral's Men performed at the Rose playhouse on this day, 424 years ago...

Henslowe writes: y^e 14 of febreary 1594 ... j ... R at longe mege of westmesster ... iij^ll ix^s

In modern English: 14^th February, 1595 ... 1 ... Received at Long Meg of Westminster ... £3 and 9 shillings.

Today, the Admiral's Men staged a play that we have not before seen at the Rose, Long Meg of Westminster. It was probably a new play: for some reason, Henslowe marks this performance with a "1" instead of his usual "Ne", but the large audience is typical of the premiere of a new play.

Long Meg of Westminster is lost, like so much of the company's repertory. This is a shame, because the play told the story of one of the most fascinating icons of Elizabethan popular culture, a semi-legendary warrior woman who beats up her enemies. The prospect of seeing this topsy-turvy heroine drew a large crowd to the Rose today. So, who was Long Meg of Westminster?

The real Meg

Bridewell Prison depicted in
William Hogarth's A Harlot's
Progress (1732)

In 1998, Bernard Capp discovered that Long Meg was a real person. The evidence exists in the archives of the Bridewell prison, a common destination for arrested prostitutes. A woman named "Margaret Barnes, otherwise called Long Meg", came to Bridewell in 1561 because she had been accused of being a "common bawd" - that is, a brothel-keeper. She stated that she had been falsely accused, but according to the records the accusations against her were "vehemently justified" so that "she could not deny the same and so departed with shame".

Records of the lives of prostitutes in the area suggest that Meg was indeed keeping a brothel disguised as a victualling-house (a tavern selling food). We know nothing more of her life after her visit to Bridewell. Was she very tall? Did she beat up men? We do not know. But somehow she became a familiar name in London, and stories about her circulated long after her death.

The legend of Long Meg

The most important repository of Long Meg tales is a jest-book (a collection of short, funny stories) entitled The Life of Long Meg of Westminster, which was first published in 1590, although the earliest surviving copy dates from 1635; you can read it here in this 19th century edition. The play was probably based on this book.

Meg beating the carrier, from a 1750 edition
of the jest-book

The tales of Long Meg have very little to do with the woman glimpsed in the Bridewell records. Meg at first works in a tavern in Westminster, but then sets up her own in Islington (these institutions really are taverns, not disguised brothels). She frequently cross-dresses and beats up men who annoy her. Later she goes to the wars in France and performs valiant acts as a soldier.

The jest-book tells many stories about Meg, but here is a one short one that captures its flavour (which you can read it in full here). Meg's mistress in Westminster is a woman with two lovers: a poet called Skelton and a Spanish knight called Sir James of Castile. Sir James suspects he has a rival, so the mistress persuades Meg to dress in man's attire to fight him, promising a new petticoat if she wins. Meg says "the Devil take me if I lose a petticoat", and disguises herself in a man's white satin suit. 

The mistress tells Sir James that a man in a white suit has insulted her. Sir James finds the disguised Meg and challenges her, whereupon she knocks his weapons away and threatens to kill him with a dagger. Meg forces Sir James to agree that he will attend a social gathering, admit in public that 'he' is the better swordsman, and wait on 'him' at table. Sir James agrees, and in front of a gathering of guests including Sir Thomas More (!) he does so, only to be mortified when his vanquisher reveals that "He that hurt you today is none other but Long Meg of Westminster!" Everyone laughs, including Sir James, who continues to serve Meg for the whole evening. "Thus," concludes the jest-book, "was Sir James  disgraced for his love and Long Meg counted a proper woman".

Many other such adventures may have appeared in the play. In the jest-book, Meg beats a carrier, a cheating vicar, a bailiff, and a gang of thieves. She travels to France with the English army and at the siege of Boulogne beats French soldiers off the walls. Unfortunately, her girl-power status ebbs when she gets married and obediently allows her husband to beat her.

Performing Meg

Long Meg, from
a 1750 edition
of the jest-book

The play of Long Meg of Westminster must have made an impression on London's theatregoers, because there are references to it in numerous dramatic works of the period; you can read an impressive array in Roslyn L. Knutson's article on the play for the Lost Plays Database. Among them is Ben Jonson's description of her in a 1624 masque, The Fortunate Isles and their Union:
 

Or Westmister Meg,
With her long leg,
As long as a crane;
And feet like a plane:
With a pair of heels
As broad as two wheels;
To drive down the dew,
As she goes to the stew:
And turns home merry
By Lambeth ferry.

Meg's enormous size makes one wonder who played her onstage. Normally, female roles were played by teenage boys. But one cannot help suspecting that Edward Alleyn, the leading man of the Admiral's Men, who was famed for his tall frame and ear-splitting voice, might have taken the opportunity to have had some fun in a drag role for this play.

It is a great shame that the text of Long Meg of Westminster has not survived; we will just have to imagine that it was as much fun as it sounds.

FURTHER READING

Long Meg of Westminster information

• The Life of Long Meg of Westminster (1635)
• Bernard Capp, "Long Meg of Westminster: A Mystery Solved", in Notes and Queries 45.3 (1998), 301-3.
• Martin Wiggins, British Drama, 1533-1642: A Catalogue, vol. 3 (Oxford University Press, 2013), entry 874.
• Roslyn L. Knutson, "Long Meg of Westminster", Lost Plays Database (2018). 

 

Henslowe links

• Transcript of this page of the Diary (from W.W. Greg's 1904 edition)
• Facsimile of this page of the Diary (from the Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project)

Comments?

Did I make a mistake? Do you have a question? Have you anything to add? Please post a comment below!