son, has left, this, under date of March 28th, 1605:--"My soonne was
sollemly contracted to Mary Foorth, by Mr. Culverwell minister of Greate
Stambridge in Essex _cum consensu parentum_." Another ride into Essex,
this time by the son alone, is entered under April 9th, and then on the
16th his marriage, "_Ætatis suæ 17 [annis] 3 mensibus et 4 diebus
completis_." This reads pleasantly:--"The VIIIth of May my soonne & his
wife came to Groton from London, & ye IXth I made a marriage feaste,
when Sr. Thomas Mildmay & his lady my sister were present. The same day
my sister Veysye came to me, & departed on ye 24th of Maye. My dawter
Fones came the VIIIth & departed home ye XXIIId of Maye." An
expeditious closing up, with honey-moon and marriage-feast, of an
evident love-passage, whose longer or shorter antecedents are not
revealed. The biographer leaves his readers their choice of assigning
the abrupt close of the college course of John Winthrop either to his
grievous sickness, or to his love for Mary Forth, daughter and sole heir
of John Forth, Esq., of Great Stambridge. We incline rather to the
latter alternative as the stronger one, inasmuch as love for Mary may
not only have been the direct cause of his loathing Cambridge, but may
even have been the cause of his sickness, which in that case becomes so
secondary a cause as hardly to be a cause at all. One thing is certain:
our honored Puritan ancestors had no scruples against short engagements,
early marriages, or rematings as often as circumstances favored.

The young bridegroom himself, in the record of his experience, which we
quote again for another purpose, reserves the confession of any haste on
his own part to enter the married state, and would seem delicately to
insinuate parental influence in the case. "About eighteen years of age,
being a man in stature & understanding, as my parents conceived me, I
married into a family under Mr. Culverwell his ministry in Essex, &,
living there sometimes, I first found ye ministry of the word come home