Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
The Bloody Story Behind the Rhyme
Mary, Mary quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells
And pretty maids all in a row.
How We See Mary Illustrated
The illustrations of Mary in her garden for the nursery rhyme Mary, Mary Quite Contrary are usually those of a cherubic maiden tripping down the path in a whimsical garden full of bells and seashells. Occasionally, one might find a rather disconcerting Victorian interpretation of the rhyme with the heads of maidens as the face of the flowers but that is as disturbing as this popular nursery rhyme gets in modern interpretation. However, Mary’s prototype was not so sweet.
About the Real Mary Behind the Rhyme
Because it is an English nursery rhyme, the most commonly accepted historical interpretation is that the rhyme refers to Mary Tudor (Mary I of England) also known as Bloody Mary. Mary was the daughter of Henry the VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her young life was full of upheaval and at one point, she was demoted from Princess to simply being ‘Lady Mary’ when her father separated with the Roman Catholic Church, became head of the Church of England, and demoted Catherine from her role as Queen, which in turn made Mary illegitimate. However, she did ultimately become Queen.
Mary’s first move, as queen, was to retroactively legalize the marriage between Henry and her mother and thus legitimize herself. Her second move was to find herself a Catholic husband so that she could provide herself with an heir and thus remove any opportunity for her Protestant sister Elizabeth from ascending the throne if she were to die.
Therefore, at the age of 37, Mary married a prince from Spain named Philip who later became Philip II. Eleven years her junior, Philip did not find Mary desirable; the marriage was simply a political move for him. Mary never succeeded in providing an heir for them. She had two false pregnancies and ultimately died from what appears to have been ovarian cancer.
A staunch Catholic, Mary tried to reverse the damage done by her father’s break with Rome. In her attempts to rid her country of Protestantism and restore Catholicism, Mary persecuted and murdered many Protestants.
Mary’s personal history and the nature of Catholicism lead to several distinct interpretations of the rhyme.
Line by Line Interpretation
One interpretation suggests that silver bells were Catholic cathedral bells, that the cockle shells were the symbol of pilgrimage to the Catholic Shrine of St James in Spain, and the pretty maids all in a row were Catholic nuns.
A second interpretation views the cockle shells as a lewd comment on her relationship with her disinterested husband, Philip II of Spain. The question How does your garden grow? was a scornful attack of her inability to produce an heir. And the pretty maids all in a row was a reference to her miscarriages.
A final interpretation goes to the heart of her persona as “Bloody Mary” with silver bells and cockle shells referring to instruments of torture: silver bells being thumbscrews and cockles shells being instruments of torture attached to the genitals. While the pretty maids would be a reference to early guillotine-type devices used to decapitate victims.
Alternate Interpretation
There are some arguments that the rhyme is really about Mary Queen of Scots a contemporary of Mary Tudor with a similar interpretation of the rhyme to the second one listed above. However, the historical data and the fact that this is an English rhyme supports the arguments for Mary Tudor.
To learn more about nobility in nursery rhymes, check out Hey Diddle, Diddle, and Ride a Cock Horse.
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