After attending Westminster School, he was, in 1651, elected student of Christ Church, Oxford, of which he became M.A.
In 1663 he was appointed chaplain to Sir Richard Fanshaw, ambassador to Spain and Portugal.
After Fanshaw's death in 1666, he returned to England, and became chaplain to the Archbishop of York, who made him prebendary of Southwell and rector of Castleton in Synderick.
[1] In August 1667, he was collated to the prebend of Barnaby in York Cathedral, and in 1668 to that of Fridaythorpe.
In 1672 he was made chaplain to the Lord Treasurer Danby, and rector of St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate London, which he exchanged for Houghton-le-Spring, Durham.