[1] Lee was trained in Cuddesdon Theological College and ordained to priesthood in 1856 by the Bishop of Oxford, Samuel Wilberforce.
In 1874, Lee, John Thomas Seccombe, and Thomas Wimberley Mossman founded a clandestine Anglo-Papalist society, the Order of Corporate Reunion, to continue the work of the APUC and to restore an apostolic succession recognised by the Roman Catholic Church through reordinations, as a means for reunion.
[5] In the late 1880s, Lee was a member of the Order of the White Rose, the club that sparked the Neo-Jacobite Revival in the United Kingdom.
[citation needed] On 11 December 1901, Lee was received into the Roman Catholic Church, shortly before his death.
In addition to his published sermons, books, and literary work, Lee edited numerous periodicals during his career, including The Union Newspaper (1856-1862), The Scottish Miscellany (1860-1861), The Union Review (1863-1869), The Church News (1867-1869), The Church Herald (1870), The Lambeth Review (1872), The Reunion Magazine (1877-1879, four numbers issued irregularly).