[1] In the months ahead, the leaders of the colony discovered that Lyford had been writing letters to England disparaging the Separatist movement at Plymouth.
In his famous history, Of Plymouth Plantation, Bradford wrote that Sarah Lyford came forward and explained how he (Lyford) had wronged her, as first he had a bastard by another before they were married, and she having some inkling of some ill carriage that way, when he was a suitor to her, she tould him what she heard, and deneyd him; but she not certainly knowing the thing, other wise then by some darke and secrete muterings, he not only stifly denied it, but to satisfie her tooke a solemne oath ther was no shuch matter.
Bradford's account of the rape and what followed is rather vivid: some time after marriage the woman was much troubled in mind, and afflicted in conscience, and did nothing but weepe and mourne, and long it was before her husband could get of her what was the cause.
But at length she discovered the thing, and prayed him to forgive her, for Lyford had overcome her, and defiled her body before marriage, after he had commended him unto her for a husband, and she resolved to have him, when he came to her in that private way.
Following Lyford's death on March 8, 1649, his widow Sarah remarried Edmund Hobart Sr., a prominent early settler of Hingham, Massachusetts.