CustomLegendary
The Lacemakers' Queen
A lonely queen, a lace pillow, and a cake for St Catherine's Day.
See it clearly
- What's there
- A stone cross marking a vanished castle
- Legend from
- 1530s
- Tone
- Curious
In Ampthill Park stands Katherine's Cross, where Henry the Eighth's first queen waited out her divorce and, lacemakers said, taught them their craft.
In 1531-33 Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's cast-off first wife, was kept at Ampthill Castle while the case to end their marriage was settled at nearby Dunstable. Bedfordshire lacemakers later claimed that the lonely queen had taught them their craft, and St Catherine's Day, 25 November, became Cattern, a lacemakers' holiday with caraway Cattern cakes, candles and dancing. Historians point out that the Katherine story first appears in an 1865 history of lace, with no evidence behind it. The castle is long gone. A stone cross raised in 1773, carved with a verse by Horace Walpole about the injured queen, marks where it stood in Ampthill Park.