BELLINGHAM, .Richard, royal governor of Massachusetts: b. about 1592; d. 7 Dec. 1672. He emigrated to the colony, of which he was one of the original patentees, in 1634; in 1635 was made deputy-governor; and in 1641 was elected governor in opposition to Winthrop by a majority of six votes. He was re-elected in 1654 and after the dsath of Endicott was chosen again in May 1665, and continued in the executive chair of the colony as long as he lived, having been deputy-governor 13 and governor 10 years. He was appointed assistant major general in 1664, in which year the King sent commissioners to inquire into the state of the colony, when, according to Hutchinson, Bellingham and others obnoxious to James II were required to go to England to account for their conduct. The General Court, however, re fused obedience and maintained the authority of the charter. -His wife having died, in 1641 he married a second time, of whic.h a con temporary spealcs thus: °A young gentleman was about to be contracted to a friend of his, when on a sudden the governor treated with her, and obtained her for himself.° The banns
were not properly published, and he performed the marriage ceremony himself. He was prose cuted for a violation of the law, but at the trial he refused to leave the bench, sat and tried himself, and thus escaped all punishment. In his last will he provided that after the de cease of his wife and of his son by a former wife, and his granddaughter, the bulk of his estate should be spent for the yearly main tenance °of godly ministers and preachers') of the true Church, which he considered to be that of the Congregationalists. This will the General Court set aside on the ground that it interfered with the rights of his family. He was a clean and just administrator, but intolerant in his attitude to the Quakers. A sister of his, Anne Hibbens, was executed at Salem in June 1656, during the witchcraft persecution.