But of all royal seamstresses, Mary Queen of Scots carries off the palm both for beauty, quantity and variety. "She wrought so well in needlework, that she Nor yet her workes shall ere forgotten be."--_John Taylor._ Her teachers in the art were Lady Fleming--her governess--and Catherine de Medicis whose needlework was unrivalled. During the time the young Queen of Scots was at the French Court she and the French Princesses assembled every afternoon in the private apartments of Queen Catherine, where for two or three hours all were occupied in needlework. At no time of her life were her hands idle; she plied her needle even while listening to the discussions of her ministers. Needlework was to her a source of real pleasure. While under the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury at Tulbury Castle she, with the help of Bess of Hardwick, her guardian's wife, worked a pair of curtains, a counterpane, and a vallance on green velvet. In describing her daily life here, she said that all the day she wrought with her needle, and that the variety of the work made it seem less tedious. In the drawing-room at Hardwick there are several pieces of her work well preserved, and in Scotland there are parts of certain bed-hangings in which M. S. is worked in very frequently. Her tapestry work proved a blessing to her, as in the year 1586 she writes, "My residence is a place enclosed with walls situated on an eminence and consequently exposed to all the winds and storms of heaven.... I have for my own accommodation only wretched little rooms, and so cold that were it not for the protection of the curtains and tapestries which I have put up, I could not endure it by day and still less by night." In the execution of all this work Mary Queen of Scots beguiled many a weary hour at Chatsworth, Buxton and Sheffield, while brooding over the plots for her escape and the intrigues and jealousies of Bess of Hardwick. She made a vest for her only son but he ungraciously refused it because she addressed him as Prince and not as King of Scotland. She worked also with her own hands an altar-piece, and presented it to the church of the convent where she had been educated. She was the first, I believe, to do the raised work in crewels. We now come to a very remarkable needlewoman, whose work is considered not only equal to that of Matilda, wife of the Conqueror, but superior to it, because it was all done with her own hands. Her name was Jean or Joan D'Albret, better known as the mother of Henry IV. of Navarre.