3966. 'It seemed to her that ladies ought to treat her with consideration,' and not look down upon her; see note to l. 3943.
3977. The person, the parson, i. e. her grandfather.
3980. 'And raised difficulties about her marriage.'
3990. The Soler-halle has been guessed to be Clare Hall, merely because that college was of early foundation, and was called a 'hall.' But a happy find by Mr. Riley tells us better, and sets the question at rest. In the First Report of the Historical MSS. Commission, p. 84, Mr. Riley gives several extracts from the Bursar's Books of King's
Hall, in which the word solarium repeatedly occurs, shewing that this Hall possessed numerous solaria, or sun-chambers, used as dwelling-rooms, apparently by the fellows. They were probably fitted with bay-windows. This leaves little doubt that Soler-Hall was another name for King's Hall, founded in 1337 by Edward III, and now merged in Trinity College. It stood on the ground now occupied by the Great Gate, the Chapel, Bowling-green, and Master's Lodge of that celebrated college. On the testimony of Chaucer, we learn that the King's Hall, even in his time, was 'a greet collegge.' Its successor is the largest in England.
In Wright's Hist. of Domestic Manners, pp. 83, 127, 128, it is explained that the early stone-built house usually had a hall on the ground-floor, and a soler above. The latter, being more protected, was better lighted, and was considered a place of greater security. 'In the thirteenth century a proverbial characteristic of an avaricious and inhospitable person, was to shut his hall-door and live in the soler.' It was also 'considered as the room of honour for rich lodgers or guests who paid well.' Udall speaks of 'the solares, or loftes of my hous'; tr. of Erasmus' Apophthegmes, Aug. Cæsar, § 27.
3999. made fare, made a to-do (as we now say).
4014. Strother. There is now no town of this name in England, but the reference is probably to a place which gave its name to a Northumbrian family. Mr. Gollancz tells me:—'The Strother family, of Northumberland, famous in the fourteenth century, was a branch of the Strothers, of Castle Strother in Glendale, to the west of Wooler. The chief member of this Northumberland branch seems to have been Alan de Strother the younger, who died in 1381. (See Calendarium Inquis. post Mortem, 4 Ric. II, vol. iii. p. 32.) The records contain numerous references to him; e. g. "Aleyn de Struther, conestable de nostre chastel de Rokesburgh," A. D. 1366 (Rymer's Fœdera, iii. 784); "Alanum del Strother, vicecomitem de Rokesburgh et vicecomitem Northumbriæ" (id. iii. 919). It is a noteworthy point that this Alan de Strother had a son John.' This definite information does away with the old guess, that Strother is a mistake for Langstrothdale Chase almost at the N.W. extremity of the W. Riding of Yorkshire, joining the far end of Wharfdale to Ribblesdale, and even now not very accessible, though it can be reached from Ribblehead station, on the Skipton and Carlisle Railway, or from Horton-in-Ribblesdale.
I suppose that Castle Strother, mentioned above, must have been near Kirknewton, some 5 miles or so to the west of Wooler. The river Glen falls into the Till, which is a tributary of the Tweed. I find mention, in 1358-9, of 'Henry de Strother, of Kirknewton in Glendale'; Brand, Hist. of Newcastle, ii. 414, note. W. Hutchinson, in his View of Northumberland, 1778, i. 260, speaks of 'Kirknewton, one of the manors of the Barony of Wark, the ancient residence of the Strothers, now the property of John Strother Ker, Esq.'