Taking with him his two sons, Willibald and Wunibald, he undertook a pilgrimage to Rome; and sailing from Hamblewich, _i.e._ Southampton, landed in France. He made a brief stay at Rouen, and paid his devotions at all the principal shrines on his way through France. On his arrival at Lucca, in Italy, he was taken ill and died. He was buried in the Church of S. Fridian, there, where his relics are still preserved; and his festival is kept with singular devotion. See further the life of S. Willibald (July 7). [Illustration: S. RICHARD AND HIS SONS. From Cahier. Feb. 7.] [Illustration: FAMILY OF S. RICHARD THE SAXON. S. WALBURGA, Virg. Abbess. S. WUNIBALD, Abbot. S. WILLIBALD, Bishop. From a Drawing by A. Welby Pugin. Feb. 7.] S. ROMUALD, AB. C. (A.D. 1027.) [Roman Martyrology. Authority:--a life by S. Peter Damian written fifteen years after his death.] S. Romuald, who was destined to be the restorer of the religious life in Italy, came into the world, according to the most credible account, about the year A.D. 907, at a time when the universal lawlessness and corruption of life and manners which had overflowed Europe, had penetrated to the recesses of the cloister, and had filled the monasteries of his native land with unworthy monks, who made the religious profession a mere cloak for vice, or at best as a pretext for an idle self-indulgent life. He belonged to the noble family of the Onesti, the Ducal race of the state of Ravenna; he is said in his youth to have been much given to sins of the flesh, but nevertheless to have been strongly drawn inwardly towards God. It is said that when in hunting he got separated from his companions in the woods, he would allow his horse to come to a standstill, and overcome by the peaceful beauty of nature, would give way to reflections on the happiness of those to whom it was given to live retired from the world far from the clash of arms, the whirl of pleasure, and the struggles of civil life. The immediate cause of his forsaking the world was as follows. His father Sergius Onesti, a man of a proud and passionate disposition, and wholly given to worldly things, had a violent quarrel with a relative about the possession of a certain meadow; so resolutely determined was he to press his quarrel to the end, that perceiving Romuald to be but half-hearted in it, and more fearful of blood-guiltiness, than desirous for the victory of his house, he threatened to disinherit him unless he displayed more zeal in the cause. The relation being equally resolved, the dependents on both sides were armed, and a fight ensued; at which Romuald, in spite of his scruples, was obliged to be present. The relation fell by the hand of Sergius himself; and Romuald, horror-stricken at the crime, of which his enforced presence at its perpetration seemed to make him a partaker, fled to the Monastery of S. Apollinaris in Classe, intending there to expiate his guilt by a penance of forty days.