 Richard Bellingham ( c . 1592 – 7 December 1672 ) was a colonial magistrate , lawyer , and several @-@ time governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony , and the last surviving signatory of the colonial charter at his death . A wealthy lawyer in Lincolnshire prior to his departure for the New World in 1634 , he was a liberal political opponent of the theocracy of the Puritan establishment in Massachusetts , and a supporter of the royal government of Charles II .

## Early life

Bellingham was born in 1592 in the parish of St. Mary the Virgin, in Sleaford , Lincolnshire , England . He was