Pepys was at sea at this time with Sir Edward Montagu, where the sailors had their own rejoicings and fired off three guns, but he enters in his _Diary_: "This day, it is thought, the King do enter the city of London."
Charles, immediately on his arrival in London, settled himself in the Palace of Whitehall, which was his chief place of residence during the whole of his reign, but although he was very much at home in it, he felt keenly the inconveniences attending its situation by the river side, which caused it frequently to be flooded by high tides.
The King alludes to this trouble in one of his amusingly chatty speeches to the House of Commons on March 1st, 1661-62, when arrangements were being made for the entry of Katharine of Braganza into London. He said:--
"The mention of my wife's arrival puts me in mind to desire you to put that compliment upon her, that her entrance into the town may be with more decency than the ways will now suffer it to be; and for that purpose, I pray you would quickly pass such laws as are before you, in order to the amending those ways, and that she may not find Whitehall surrounded by water."
[Illustration: A VIEW OF LONDON AS IT APPEARED BEFORE THE GREAT FIRE.
1 St. Paul's. 2 St. Dunstan's. 3 Temple. 4 St. Bride's. 5 St. Andrew's. 6 Baynard's Castle. 7 St. Sepulchre's. 8 Bow Church. 9 Guildhall. 10 St. Michael's. 11 St. Laurence, Poultney. 12 Old Swan. 13 London Bridge. 14 St. Dunstan's East. 15 Billingsgate. 16 Custom House. 17 Tower. 18 Tower Wharf. 19 St. Olave's. 20 St. Saviour's. 21 Winchester House. 22 The Globe. 23 The Bear Garden. 24 Hampstead. 25 Highgate. 26 Hackney.]
In the following year we read in Pepys's _Diary_ a piquant account of the putting out of Lady Castlemaine's kitchen fire on a certain occasion when Charles was engaged to sup with her:--
"October 13th, 1663. My Lady Castlemaine, I hear, is in as great favour as ever, and the King supped with her the very first night he came from Bath: and last night and the night before supped with her; when there being a chine of beef to roast, and the tide rising into their kitchen that it could not be roasted there, and the cook telling her of it, she answered, 'Zounds! she must set the house on fire, but it should be roasted!' So it was carried to Mrs. Sarah's husband's, and there it was roasted."