In the British Museum are some Tracts and Newspapers which escaped Mr. Ormerod's notice. The Tracts are nearly all in the Thomason Collection, which have recently been made much more accessible by the Catalogue in two volumes, issued in 1908. References in the following pages has always been made to the Civil War Tracts where possible, and to the British Museum Catalogue only when the Tract or Newspaper has not been reprinted anywhere. The principal newspapers are the Royalist "Mercurius Aulicus": and "Perfect Diurnall" (which has several issues), "Certaine Informations, Continuation of Certaine Speciall and Remarkable Passages," and "Letters from Scotland," &c. on the other side. The last mentioned, which belongs to 1648 and gives a great deal of local information, is not quoted at all by Mr. Ormerod. None of the Newspapers are very reliable but the "Mercurius Aulicus" is hopelessly inaccurate. Of MSS. in the British Museum, the Rupert MSS. contain letters referring to the invasion from Ireland, and Prince Rupert's march north in 1644; the Brereton MSS. deal with the relations between Lancashire and Cheshire. They concern us mainly in the Spring and Summer of 1645, when the two counties co-operated against the projected royalist march northwards; and afterwards later in the same year, when Lancashire help was needed to complete the reduction of Chester. The Rupert MSS. are Additional MSS. 18980, 18981: the Brereton MSS. Additional MSS. 11331, 11332, 11333. Other MSS. Collections are the Tanner MSS. and the Carte MSS. in the Bodleian Library. The former contain some letters of the local parliamentarian committee to the Speaker, and some royalist ones dealing with the campaign of 1651. With these must be mentioned the reprints from the Tanner MSS. in Cary's "Memorials of the Great Civil War" (1842). The Carte MSS. being mostly Ormonde Papers, relate to the landing of troops from Ireland in December, 1643, and the events of the following Spring and Summer; and many letters of the Earl of Derby to Ormonde of later date, throwing light on the royalist leader's retirement in the Isle of Man. Gardiner's History is always valuable to the student of the period, even in so local a subject as the present. Naturally the references to Lancashire are, however, few, and errors of detail sometimes occur. The following abbreviations have been used:-- C.J.--Commons' Journals. L.J.--Lords' Journals. C.S.P.--Calendar of State Papers (Domestic). C.W.T.--Civil War Tracts of Lancashire. Discourse.--The Discourse of the Warr in Lancashire. C.S.--Chetham Society. R.S.--Record Society. INTRODUCTION