#cromewll

£6.49

Comparison:

"The pun, like a pinecone that survives a forest fire, was soon sprouting anew."

Context:

"Mercifully, [Oliver] Cromwell died in 1658, and England’s totalitarian religious fever began to break. By 1661, the religious zealots were marginalized and a more independent and moderate parliament began liberalizing the country once again. They relaxed censorship, reopened theaters, loosened up social controls and even restored a limited monarchy, with a second King Charles atop the throne.

[comparison here] As the story goes, when the king was told that his jester, the playwright Charles Killigrew, could pun on any subject, he issued a challenge and commanded Killigrew ‘make one on me.’

Instantly, Killigrew quipped that this was impossible, because ‘the king is no subject.’

. . . Yes, if the Restoration was a good time to be king, relatively speaking, it was an even better time for English punsters, many of whom began to fill London’s burgeoning coffeehouses."

Pollack, John. The Pun also Rises. New York: Gotham Books, 2011. 70-71.