By 1444 he was an official in the Exchequer and in 1450 as clerk to John Somer, an Auditor, had to report to Parliament on the state of the nation's finances.
The victory of the Yorkist faction in 1460 ended these posts in East Anglia but enhanced his standing in the Exchequer, where in 1463 he was promoted to the major office of Under-Treasurer of England.
[8][3] From 1464 he started attending meetings of the Privy Council,[3] and remained active in national affairs for the rest of his life, being appointed to a commission to survey royal property in the Windsor area on 24 February 1476, only days before his death.
However, in common with many pursuing successful urban careers, he also invested in the prime status symbol of rural landholdings and their associated rights.
[9] Another enterprise was acquiring a wardship, with the right to choose the spouse of an under-age heir, which in 1466 he did in partnership with William Essex (later one of his executors)[10] for Nicholas Carew.
Its assets were first appropriated by Cardinal Wolsey to fund a charitable project in Ipswich, which collapsed with his fall from power.
To his eldest grandson George, future 5th Baron Bergavenny, he left the primer he wrote out himself, his psalter, and his copy of De Regimine Principum.