Old Hampshire Mapped
Cox's Hampshire
Transcription (28)Romsey
Romsey Abbey
Edgar
Alsace, Matthew of
Mary, Princess
Rumsey, called by the Saxon Rumseg, a large and ancient Town in the Road from Southampton to Salisbury. It is governed by a Mayor, Recorder, six Aldermen, and twelve Burgesses, &c. 'Tis much inhabited by Clothiers, and has a good Market on Saturdays weekly, and three Fairs yearly, on Easter Monday, August the 15th, and St. Simon and St. Jude.
King Edgar built a Nunnery here, the Church of which is yet standing. Matthew of Alsace, Son to the Earl of Flanders, found a Way to convey privately out of it, the Princess Mary, King Stephen's only Daughter and Heir, then Abbess of it, and married her: But the Church pursued him with her thundering Sentences, and tho' he kept her till he had two Daughters by her, yet he was at length forced to resign her, that she might return to it again according to her Vow. The Tese parting hence presently falls into the Southampton Bay at
next
