against any of them were begun for some little time, but there were continual skirmishes in the county; parties of Parliament men moving about, parties of Royalists collecting supplies. On 19 April 1646 there was a skirmish in front of Worcester, the record of which, appears in the Kidderminster parish register, where the burial of a soldier is mentioned, under that date: On 27 April, about midnight, Charles I left Oxford for the last time, disguised as a servant and after failing to rendezvous with a French agent, on 5 May, he surrendered to Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven commander of the Scottish army in England that was encamped outside the heavily fortified town of Newark-on-Trent which the Scots were besieging. On the King's arrival, Leven insisted that he should at once order Newark to be surrendered to the Parliament. Charles did so, sending an order to the governor, Lord Bellasis, to that effect. On 8 May Newark surrendered, the Royalist officers and soldiers marched home. The next day, 9 May, the Scots marched northward, taking Charles I with them. In four days (on 13 May) they reached Newcastle-on-Tyne, where they halted and remained. On 10 June 1646, Charles issued the following warrant: The Parliamentary commanders had not waited for this order. On 1 May 1646, Thomas Fairfax, with the aid of Philip Skippon, who had recovered from his wounds at the Battle of Naseby, began his operations against Oxford. It may have been designed for effect that Skippon returned to his command on 1 May, the anniversary of the New Model Army taking the field. Before doing more at Oxford than driving in the outposts, Banbury was attacked, and surrendered on 6 May. Fairfax now sent off as many horse as he could spare to Worcester, under the command of Colonel Edward Whalley, to harry the garrison until such time as the army were at liberty to advance against it. As was usual at this stage of the war, before a major town or fortress was reduced, the surrounding satellite garrisons would be reduced. So while steps were being taken as to Worcester, two of the other garrisons were disposed of. The first was Dudley Castle. At the beginning of May, Brereton moved up to attack. The governor of the castle, Thomas Leveson, expecting an attack, had prepared for it by clearing away all the buildings round the Castle