He was governor of the East India Company and took part in other ventures to develop English interests in overseas trade.
For some time governor of the Merchant Adventurers' Company, he went to the Netherlands as one of the commissioners for that society in June 1598 to obtain a staple for their wool, cloth, and kerseys.
[2] Following the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot in November 1605, Romney was asked to make searches in London by the Lord Chief Justice for Lady Gray, who had been Robert Catesby's landlady.
On 28 February 1610, he was a signatory to the appointment of the first Governor of Virginia, Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr.
By his will, dated 18 April 1611, he gave liberally to the hospitals, £20 to forty poor scholars in Cambridge, and £50 to the Haberdashers' Company to be lent to a young freeman gratis for two years.