Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

TAYLOR'S SONNETS 59
skein of red silk about her neck.1 Her work, as well
as that of her mother, is specially commemorated by
Taylor, the poet of the Thames and of the needle.
" Certaine Sonnets in the Honourable Memory of
Queenes and great Ladies, who have bin famous for
the rare invention and practise with the Needle," form
the second part of his book "The Needle's Excellency,
a new boke wherein are divers admirable workes
wrought with the Needle. Newly invented and cut
in copper for the pleasure and profit of the industrious."
(London: 12th edition, 1640.) Two of
the sonnets have so special a bearing on the life of the
first dwellers in Hampton Court as to be worthquoting
entire.2 They are the second and third of the series.
The second sonnet is to —
Katharine,first married to Arthur, Prince of Wales, and
afterward to Henry, the 8. King of England.
Ireade that in the seventh King Henrie's Raigne
Fair Katharine, Daughter to the Castile King,
Came into England with a pompous traine
Of Spanish Ladies which shee thence did bring.
She to the eight KingHenry married was,
And afterwardsdivorc'd, where vertuously
(Although a Queene) yet she her days didpasse
In working with the Needle curiously,
1 See the Countess of Wilton's " Art of Needlework," p. 380, and
Lady M. Alford's "Needlework as Art." Cf. Henry VIII., act iii.
scene 1.
2Iam indebted to the kindness of Miss Florence Freeman, herself
skilled alikewith the penand the needle,for havingcalledmy attention
to these quaint verses.