Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary…

Mary I of England is often confused with her cousin “Mary, Queen of Scots”, who lived at the same time. Many scholars trace the nursery rhyme "Mary, Mary, quite contrary… how does your garden grow… with silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row" to Mary’s unpopular attempts to bring Roman Catholicism back to England, identifying the "cockle shells", for example, with the symbol of pilgrimage to the Catholic Shrine of St. James in Spain and the "pretty maids all in a row" with Catholic nuns.

http://tudorhistory.org/mary/queenmary.jpg