Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary is an English nursery rhyme.

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockleshells

And pretty maids all in a row.

Some people have asserted that the nursery rhyme had political meaning, claiming that :

• "How does your garden grow" refers to how Mary (the queen of Scots) was doing at controlling the country.
• "With silver bells . . ." refers to the fact that Mary was Catholic and that the cathedrals rang bells.
• ". . . and cockleshells" refers to an insult.
• "And pretty maids all in a row" refers both to how ugly Mary was compared to other women and to how she killed people: in rows and rows.

Mary Queen of Scots was accounted a great beauty. She was also not known for killing "rows and rows" of people, although one of her lovers, Darnley, was mixed up in a murder. I think the above author has her confused with Mary Queen of England, the half sister of Queen Elizabeth I, (Mary Stuart was their cousin). Mary of England was an agent of the counter-reformation, was married to Philip of Spain, and did execute many Protestants. This was the last gasp of Catholicism as a state religion in England, following upon her father's (Henry VIII) declaring himself head of the (now) Anglican Church. Because of this, and the ultimate victory of Protestantism in England, the Stuart line was finally removed from the throne for good in the 1680s with the overthrow of James II. This led to the Pretender and his son, Bonny Prince Charlie, fomenting revolution from their base in Scotland for many many decades, culminating in the scouring of the Highlands. Whew.