Sir William Cary was beheaded after the defeat of the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471[6] and is believed to be represented by a monumental brass of a knight, without surviving identifying inscription, set into a slate ledger stone on the floor of the chancel of All Saints Church, Clovelly, next to a smaller brass, in similar style, of his eldest son and heir Robert Cary (died 1540).
[citation needed] By July 1522 he was serving in the Royal Navy as captain of the King's ship, The Katherine Galley which was in the Channel between the Cinque Ports and Jersey during Henry VIII's first war with Francis I.
By 1526 John, probably through the influence of his younger brother William Cary was at Henry VIII's court as a Groom of the Privy Chamber.
By September 1542 he had returned to sea as a vice-admiral commanding the transports of the East Coast in support of the Duke of Norfolk's expedition against Scotland.
His arms, impaling Denny, survive in the large heraldic stained glass window in Mereworth Church in Kent, which manor was connected to the Walsingham family.