[7] Washington's services to Laud earned him an appointment to the well-compensated rectory of All Saints parish at Purleigh in Essex, a position he assumed in 1632.

[7] During the Civil War more than one hundred Church of England clergymen, referred to as "scandalous, malignant priests", were dismissed from their parishes for alleged high treason, Laudianism, or immorality by the Puritan Parliament.

[8] In 1643, Washington was censured on trumped-up charges of being "a common frequenter of ale-houses" who "[encouraged] others in that beastly vice" and lost his benefice.

His wife and children did not accompany him there, as they were given shelter by the family of Sir Edwin Sandys, sympathetic relations whose patriarch had served as treasurer in the Virginia Company.

[10] Washington died in poverty, leaving an estate of insufficient value to require the issuance of letters of administration, and was buried in the churchyard of All Saints' Church at Maldon, Essex.