I was totally captivated by this quote, and then it began to dawn on me it was a clever parody.
It was the comment: ‘Her Majesty’s Men’ that awakened the old grey cells. ‘Her?’ I know that long curly hair, frills and fancy attire can be deceiving but then that was Charles the Second for you. Charles was King. The next queen wouldn’t be until William and Mary shared the throne 23 years later.
As for the Great Plague; London may have had a smattering of cases in 1664 but it didn’t swamp the city until 1665.
Still, it was an entertaining piece and it hasn’t stopped it from spreading around social media like the great fire which swept through London a year later, 1666.
And if you can actually be bothered to read what Pepys did say, I found some of his comments rather comforting, his fears not unlike ours today, and even though he was dealing with a situation far worse than the one we are currently facing, his outlook remained compassionate and on the whole, positive.
Doesn’t it show how careful we must be as writers to check authenticity of quotes and facts before using them?
