He converted to Catholicism and resigned his positions in 1656 to travel to France to become organist to Queen Henrietta Maria, widow of the executed King Charles I. Arthur Phillips, from Winchester, Hampshire, was admitted to New College, Oxford, aged 17 in 1622.
[1] He then travelled to France to serve as organist to Queen Henrietta Maria, widow of King Charles I (who had been executed in 1649).
[1][3] After the monarchy was restored in 1660, he returned to England to live in Harting, Sussex, where he owned some land; he died there on 27 March 1695.
His surviving instrumental music, held in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, consists of some variations for keyboard, and some ensemble pieces.
[1] He set poems (including royalist poetry) and hymns to music, including "The Requiem, or, Liberty of an Imprisoned Royalist" (1641) by Thomas Pierce (another Magdalen student, who was a Fellow of Magdalen from 1643 until his expulsion by the Parliamentary visitation).