"Long Meg of Westminster kept alwaies twenty courtizans in her
house, whom, by their pictures, she sold to all commers."
From these extracts the occupation of Long Meg may be readily guessed
at. Is it then likely that such a detestable character would have been
buried amongst "goodly friars" and "holy abbots" in the cloisters of our
venerable abbey? I think not: but I leave considerable doubts as to
whether Meg was a real personage.--Query. Is she not akin to Tom Thumb,
Jack the Giant-killer, Doctor Rat, and a host of others of the same
type?
The stone in question is, I know, on account of its great size, jokingly
called "Long Meg, of Westminster" by the vulgar; but no one, surely,
before Mr. Cunningham, ever _seriously_ supposed it to be her
burying-place. Henry Keefe, in his _Monumenta Westmonasteriensa_, 1682,
gives the following account of this monument:--
"That large and stately plain black marble stone (which is
vulgarly known by the name of _Long Meg of Westminster_) on the
north side of _Laurentius_ the abbot, was placed there for
_Gervasius de Blois_, another abbot of this monastery, who was
base son to King Stephen, and by him placed as a monk here, and
afterwards made abbot, who died _anno_ 1160, and was buried
under this stone, having this distich formerly thereon:
"_De regnum genere pater hic Gervasius ecce
Monstrat defunctus, mors rapit omne genus_."
Felix Summerly, in his _Handbook for Westminster Abbey_, p. 29.,
noticing the cloisters and the effigies of the abbots, says,--
"Towards this end there lies a large slab of blue marble, which
is called 'Long Meg' of Westminster. Though it is inscribed to
Gervasius de Blois, abbot, 1160 natural son of King Stephen, he
is said to have been buried under a small stone, and tradition
assigns 'Long Meg' as the gravestone of twenty-six monks, who
were carried off by the plague in 1349, and buried together in
one grave."
The tradition here recorded may be correct. At any rate, it carries with
it more plausibility than that recorded by Mr. Cunningham.