As events reach mid February, news is spreading across all England about what happened in the first couple of weeks in January.
The calamitous Scots started the new year in a debacle. It took a week to muster their army and when it began to march south the generals insisted upon marching through blizzards. The roads became quite impassable and the army was last seen billeted in makeshift tents on the outskirts of Edinburgh.
Parliamentary armies around Lincoln (Fairfax), Boston (Manchester), Windsor (Essex) and Farnham(Waller) have all been quiet with only small patrols pressing on through wind and snow.
In the North West the stout Royalist Byron force-marched his army passed hostile towns in the blinding snow to reach the midlands.
Maurice in Shrewsbury was thought to be heading south towards Gloucester yet his brother Rupert was seen heading north towards Shrewsbury with a picked band of horsemen. Hopton in the south east remained in quarters as did the King's forces around Oxford.
Parliamentary stronholds of Gloucester, Poole, Lyme and Plymouth remain under light seiges.
Montrose spent the new year whispering in the King's ear and was last seen boarding a ship at Bristol accompanied by gold and powder.
The terrible weather has made marching and the transmittion of news extremely difficult.
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