Did she retire from the world, and find refuge in a nunnery?
Did she go away to some other home? Who knows? And what of Peter the
Roman? I know little of him, but I suspect the pressure put upon the
poor man was too strong for him, and I suspect that somehow, and, let
us hope, with much anguish and bitterness of heart--but yet somehow,
he was compelled to repudiate the poor woman to whom there is
evidence to show he was true and staunch as long as it was possible--
and when it was no longer possible I _think_ he too turned his
back upon the Rougham home, and was presented by the Prior of
Westacre Monastery to the Rectory of Bodney at the other end of the
county, where, let us hope, he died in peace.
It is a curious fact that Peter Romayn was not the only clergyman in
Rougham whom we know to have been married. As for Peter Romayn, I
believe he was an honourable man according to his light, and as far
as any men were honourable in those rough days. But for the other. I
do not feel so sure about him.
I said that the two prosperous men in Rougham six hundred years ago
were Peter Romayn and Thomas the Lucky, or, as his name appears in
the Latin Charters, Thomas Felix. When Archdeacon Middleton gave up
living at Rougham, Thomas Felix bought his estate, called the Lyng
House; and shortly after he bought another estate, which, in fact,
was a manor of its own, and comprehended thirteen free tenants and
five villeins; and, as though this were not enough, on September 24,
1292, he took a lease of another manor in Rougham for six years, of
one of the daughters of Sir Richard le Butler, whose husband, I
suppose, wanted to go elsewhere.
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