The discomfited Rupert, with the wreck of his army, retreated towards Chester, and thence into Lancashire, where he had the mortification to see all the strongholds he had recently gained speedily retaken, and among them the castle of Liverpool. Brereton was quickly marching in the same direction. Halton Castle still held out for the King, though, as we learn from a letter addressed by Goring to Prince Rupert, it was then threatened by the garrison of Warrington. It shortly afterwards surrendered, and on the 22nd July was taken possession of by the Parliamentary troops under Brereton. A few weeks later Colonel Marrow, the governor of Chester, with a small force marched from that city towards Northwich, "plundering some poor men's cattle by the way;" when near Hartford he was met by a party of Brereton's men. Marrow retreated towards Sandiway, and there faced about, when a skirmish took place. Fifteen of Brereton's soldiers were captured, but the victory was dearly bought, for Marrow himself, "a most pestilent Atheisticall Royalist," as Vicars calls him, received a shot, from the effects of which he died the following day. This was on Sunday, the 18th of August. A few days later the Nantwich men, with the assistance of Brereton's cavalry and some troops from Halton, attacked the Royalists in their quarters near Tarvin, and defeated them, and on the 26th they were again engaged near Malpas, when the Cavaliers sustained some serious losses. Hearing that Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, was besieged in Montgomery Castle, Brereton, with Sir Wm. Meldran, Sir Wm. Fairfax, and thirty-two troops of horse out of Lancashire, and other companies out of Staffordshire, in all about three thousand men, set out to relieve him. On Tuesday, the 17th September, they compelled the Royalists to raise the siege, which led to a desperate encounter on the following day, when the King's troops were defeated with a loss of five hundred slain and fourteen hundred prisoners, among the latter being that "_Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche_," Major-general Sir Thomas Tyldesley. Among the slain on the Parliament side was Sir William Fairfax. A week after this exploit Brereton and his forces returned to Nantwich. In the scattered but authentic records of the period we get frequent glimpses of him hurrying hither and thither during the dark winter months. In February, 1644-5, the town and castle of Shrewsbury, with the ordnance, arms, and ammunition, and a considerable body of prisoners, surrendered to him, and, as the spring advanced, his forces began to gather by degrees round the castle of Beeston and the city of Chester, which still held out for the King; but news coming that the Princes Rupert and Maurice were approaching to the relief, his men fell back upon Nantwich, and the relieving force of Royalists, having accomplished their object, retired, first plundering Bunbury and burning Beeston Hall. Scarcely had they departed, however, when the siege of Chester was renewed.