English Restoration
The 1640s and 1650s in England were a time of great turmoil. The English Civil War led to the establishment of the Commonwealth of England and eventually the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. In this period, Massachusetts was generally sympathetic to Cromwell and the Parliamentary cause. With the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660, all of the colonies, and Massachusetts in particular, came under his scrutiny. In 1661 he issued a mandamus forbidding further persecution of the Quakers. He also requested specific changes to be made to Massachusetts laws to increase suffrage and tolerance for other Protestant religious practices, actions that were resisted or ignored during the Endecott administration. Charles finally sent royal commissioners to New England in 1664 to enforce his demands, but Massachusetts, of all the New England colonies, was the most recalcitrant, refusing all of the substantive demands or enacting changes that only superficially addressed the issues.
The reaction by Charles to this was to issue an order in 1666 demanding that Bellingham, since he was then governor, and William Hathorne, the speaker of the general court, travel to England to answer for the colony's behavior. The issue of how to answer this demand divided the colony, with petitions from a cross-section of the colony's population calling for the magistrates to obey the king's demand. The debate also introduced a long-term rift in the council of assistants between hardliners wanting to resist the king's demands at all costs and moderates who thought the king's demands should be accommodated. Bellingham sided with the hardliners and the decision was reached to send the king a letter. The letter questioned whether the request actually originated with the king, protested that the colony was loyal to him, and claimed the magistrates had already explained fully why they were unable to comply with the king's demands. The magistrates further pacified the angered sovereign by sending over a ship full of masts as a gift (New England was a valuable source of timber for the Royal Navy). Distracted by the war with the Dutch and domestic politics, Charles did not pursue the issue further until after Bellingham's death, though for numerous reasons the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter was finally voided in 1684.
Read more about this topic: Richard Bellingham
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