About Monday 25 May 1668

Victoria on 26 May 2021  •  Link

That Arthur Bryant para in full (Arthur Bryant, the Man in the Making, p46 in my 1952 edition):

"The most troublesome prize of all was the young Marquis de Baides, son of the fallen Viceroy of Peru. During the fight off Cadiz, his father, mother and sister had all been slain and his entire fortune captured, and Montagu's kindly and sympathetic heart had been touched by his plight. Till the boy could be ransomed, he left him in the charge of the Pickerings and his servant Pepys, bidding them apply some of the captured furniture to provide him a suitable bedchamber. It was possibly in the discharge of these charitable duties that Pepys first acquired that acquaintance with Spanish which he was later to find so useful in the formation of his library and the recording of his amours. Montagu had been content to converse with the young marquis in Latin; it is in keeping with what we know of Pepys' eager love for learning that he should have wished to improve the occasion by making himself master of a new language."

About Tuesday 30 April 1661

Victoria on 4 May 2014  •  Link

According to my copy of 'London Under London', which has a chapter on lost rivers, if Pepys did drop his hat in a river here it would be the Neckinger. Newington Butts runs up one side of the Elephant and Castle shopping centre, and the Neckinger, now paved over, runs under the Imperial War Museum, Elephant and Castle roundabout and New Kent Rd.

About Tuesday 23 April 1661

Victoria on 24 Apr 2014  •  Link

Further to Bill's comment above. Although it has been returned to Scotland in recent years and is now kept in Edinburgh Castle the Stone of Destiny must still be considered vital for a coronation, as the arrangement is that it will be brought back to Westminster for the occasion.