The children’s nursery rhyme “Mary, Mary, quite contrary” is about Mary, Queen of Scots, and emerged during her struggle for power with Queen Elizabeth I.
The “pretty maids all in a row” were her ladies in waiting, the Marys: Seaton, Fleming, Livingston, and Beaton.
The cockleshells were decorations on an elaborate gown given to her by the French Dauphin.
The rhyme was popular when Mary was beheaded in 1587.
