The industry of Henry's last queen was as great as that of his first. Specimens still exist at Sizergh Castle, Westmoreland, of Katharine Parr's needlework—a counterpane and a toilet cover. An astrologer, who cast her nativity, foretold she would be a queen; so when a child, on her mother requiring her to work, she would exclaim, "My hands are ordained to touch crowns and sceptres, not needles and spindles."
Dames Illustres.
The "Reine des Marguerites," the learned sister of Francis I., was not less accomplished with her needle, and entries for working materials appear in her accounts up to the year of her death, 1549.
"Trois marcs d'or et d'argent fournis par Jehan Danes, pour servir aux ouvraiges de la dicte dame."—Livre de dépenses de Marguerite d'Angoulême, par le Comte de la Ferrière-Percy. Paris, 1862.
"Elle addonoit son courage
A faire maint bel ouvrage
Dessus la toile, et encor