Gov. Richard Bellingham’s marriage causes a scandal.

Bellingham, 50, marries Penelope Pelham, 20, described in one account as “a young woman of his household” and by John Winthrop as a “gentlewoman . . . ready to be contracted to a friend of his.” The marriage also provoke controversy because Bellingham did not publish his marriage intentions, and, as a magistrate of the court, claims the authority to perform the ceremony himself, prompting Winthrop to write, “That he married himself contrary to the constant practice of the country.”