With silver bells and cockleshellsAnd pretty maids all in a rowAnd pretty maids all in a rowMary, Mary, quite contrary How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockleshells And pretty maids all in a row And pretty maids all in a row.
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Meaning
Mary, Mary is a grisly nursery rhyme about Queen Mary I. She came to the throne after her dad, Henry VIII and her half-brother, Edward V, had spent much time converting the country to the Protestant faith. But this was a problem for Mary, who was a staunch Catholic. She immediately started to revert the changes that had been made, hence the 'quite contrary' bit of the rhyme. Her right-hand man was the Lord Chancellor Stephen Gardiner (geddit?).The silver bells of the third line aren't flowers. They're an instrument of torture where the thumb was crushed by the tightening of a screw. Mary used these alarmingly often on her enemies. As she did the cockleshells...a torture device that was attached to a man's, erm, cockles. The pretty maids all in a row are the protestant women Mary had executed, Margaret Polley, Isobella Forster, Lady Jane Grey...and, sadly, a good many more.
