The pedigree of Robertson
of Strowan is given in the same vol.
F.R.S.L. and E.
_Long Meg of Westminster._--I am not quite of DR. RIMBAULT'S opinion,
that Long Meg of Westminster is a fictitious personage. I believe her to
have been as much a real wonton as Moll Cutpurse was a century later.
If the large stone shown as Long Meg's grave had been anywhere else
within the walls of Westminster Abbey than where it is, I should have
had great dockets about the Westminster tradition. But Long Meg, there
is reason to believe from the numerous allusions to her in the
Elizabethan dramatists, was a heroine after the Reformation, and her
burial, therefore, in the cloisters, where few people of wealth or good
reputation were buried between 1538 and 1638, seems to me a common
occurrence. Had Islip or Esteney buried her among the abbots in the
cloister, I could then have joined in DR. RIMBAULT'S surprise. I have
altered the passage, however, to "marking, the grave, _it is said_."
This will meet, I trust, DR. RIMBAULT'S objection, though I have Gifford
to support me in the passage as it at present stands:
"There is a penny story-book of this tremendous virago
[Westminster Meg], who performed many wonderful exploits about
the time that Jack the Giant Killer flourished.
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