Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Little Ice Age spans roughly from the 16th to the 19th centuries though some experts prefer dates between 1300 and 1850. NASA Earth Observatory data identifies three particularly cold intervals beginning around 1650, another near 1770, and the last starting in 1850.
In Central Europe winter temperatures averaged 0.9 degrees Celsius below the 1961, 1990 baseline with the 17th century seeing drops of 1.2 degrees Celsius according to reconstructions by historian Christian Pfister and climatologist Heinz Wanner. The Baltic Sea froze over twice in 1303 and again during 1306, 1307 creating years of unseasonable cold storms and rising Caspian Sea levels.
Famines in France between 1693 and 1694 Norway from 1695 to 1696 and Sweden from 1696 to 1697 claimed roughly 10 percent of each country's population while Estonia and Finland lost a fifth and third respectively during 1696, 1697. Alpine villagers lived on bread made from ground nutshells mixed with barley and oat flour as agriculture dropped off dramatically in the late 17th century.
A severe tropical volcanic eruption in 1257 possibly Mount Samalas near Lombok Indonesia followed by three smaller eruptions in 1268 1275 and 1284 did not allow the climate to recover triggering initial cooling. The 1815 eruption of Tambora blanketed the atmosphere with ash making the following year known as the Year Without a Summer when frost and snow were reported in June and July across New England and Northern Europe.
The first River Thames frost fair occurred in 1608 and the last in 1814 before changes to bridges and the addition of the Thames Embankment diminished freezing possibilities. Merchants equipped boer style boats with planks and skates creating iceboats to continue trade during prolonged winters spanning five months.