When he went to Spain, the King, Carlos II, received him in a private interview. By January 1669, he had arrived in Portugal, and from there endeavoured to England, where he met Charles II and Samuel Pepys, who described him as "a very jolly and good comely man." Cosimo was amiably welcomed by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, for his father's perceived protection of Galileo from the Inquisition. In London, he stayed at St. Albans House as a guest of the Earl of St Albans.