A native of Anglesey, he entered St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, and studied logic and grammar, but did not take a degree.
On leaving university he became tutor to Charles Stuart, the son of Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, and with him travelled through France and Spain.
For the use of his pupils he also wrote A Comfortable Aid for Scholers, London, 1578, a collection of renderings of English phrases in Latin.
It was itself an influence on English theatre, with the 1603 play Labyrinthus of Walter Hawkesworth combining a plot of Giambattista della Porta with a subplot from the book; and possibly on William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser.
[2][3] The translation appeared in 1576, printed by Henry Bynneman and with a dedication to Sir Thomas Gresham, but it had apparently been licensed by 1568 to Colwell.