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C'lyde

The steward won't be able to take Matthew's place.  Also, he's got to stay close enough to the castle that he can't be off arranging things.  Peter is a far better suspect in every way.

Rotary plows--with tire chains.

I suspect that's the result of multiple snowfalls, perhaps daily falls of half an inch to seven or eight inches.  The walls of the snowpiles around the road look to be about 18 feet high, but the snow beyond seems to be maybe ten feet deep.

But imagine what four days of real warmth, with a few inches of rain, will do to that road.  And the subsequent freeze may require clearing by jackhammer.

W'all Street

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20151225

Ewe Street?

Eye Street

I'd allow about 180 words, less than a page, painting a rough picture of the world.  I ran in a lot of items, but I think four might do it.  You don't need or want to go into any depth on any of them.

There's no point diving into Britain, since the story will take that over.  Instead describe the neighborhood, as it were, and end by turning, with a one-sentence teaser, to Britain.

You might set the scene in a town by mentioning the church, the town hall, the country doctor's house, and the newspaper office above the drugstore.  Ellery Queen does this for Wrightsville in some of the Wrightsville novels, and at some length.  (I'm recalling, I think, =Double Double=, one of the 'return to ...' stories.)  But this doesn't need the depth, because it's just creating a sense of the world.

Why not try lining up three or four summary items and seeing how it reads?  Try for fifteen to 25 words each, between three and six proper nouns in each?  You know the history, I don't.

But not the equal of the Fourth (and not later) editions of Roget's International.

Rebecca, it's no secret I'm a big fan of your story and I'll give it a five-star review when it hits Amazon, but that doesn't mean I'm satisfied in every way.  I was thinking of some things, and I think I see a weakness in what you might call framing.  I'll start the explanation with some illustration.

These are selected verses from the first two chapters of The Ballad of the White Horse, said to be the last great epic poem in the English language.  Leave aside that it is an amazing work, and consider that it deals with a figure of legend.  And although it does not pretend to be an exact history (having other ambitions, made clear in Alfred's prophecy in the last chapter--also amazing writing, but not pertinent here) it has an extraordinary sense of place and time-out-of-time, given in 'His days as our days ran' and 'Before the gods that made the gods ...'.

A very different work, a very different setting.  But note that all of the abstract promises end with a specific time and place.

Okay, how does this apply to you?  You've got a historical setting, and probably some pretty definite dates for a few points.  But the modern reader, ignorant of any history he didn't live through--and probably of two thirds of that!--needs help of a different sort.

The books are yours, and this is just a suggestion, though I think it would help.

I envision a preface, prologue, or preamble something like this:

Obviously, I'm ignorant of what places and names might go here, and the introduction for The Beast must be different.  Note though that you don't have to give exact dates; you need only give a tapestry that sets a tone and evokes a world now forgotten, except in the dusty stacks of old libraries.

I hope this helps, even if all it does is set you thinking on a better course.

For a really superb example of this sort of preamble, see the first two pages of the first volume of Manchester's The Last Lion.  (The last half-page, a breathtaking description, could be summarized as a want ad: Help Wanted: Messiah.  Experience required.  But it loses something in the condensation.)