In the latter part of Edward VI's reign he went as a voluntary exile to France, staying at Rouen, to avoid the church reforms in England.
He was subsequently appointed by Edmund Grindal to the prebendal stall of Wenlocks-barn in St Paul's Cathedral on 1 August 1565 and admitted to the degree of B.D.
by his university on 12 July 1568 and received from Bishop Bullingham the stall of Louth in Lincoln Cathedral on 10 September of the same year and still retaining his other preferments was installed canon of Worcester on 13 October 1570.
He was allowed to hold the recently created bishopric of Bristol in commendam as well as the prebend of Norton in Hereford Cathedral, to which he was installed on 16 January 1582.
When the see of Oxford fell vacant in 1592, John Aylmer, then Bishop of London, at his request unsuccessfully endeavoured to obtain it for Bullingham.