[2][3] Hawkins became rector of Doddington in the Isle of Ely (19 January 1519), of East Dereham, Norfolk (1520), and Snailwell, Cambridgeshire (20 June 1526).
[2] A career diplomat of the crown, Hawkins was collated to the archdeaconry of Ely, to which he was admitted by proxy 9 November 1527 while he was on a mission, resigning the rectory of Doddington.
In the pursuit of the divorce of Henry VIII, Hawkins's reputation saw his appointment in 1532 as resident ambassador at the Imperial court in succession to Thomas Cranmer.
By Christmas Eve he had reached Bologna, where Pope Clement VII had come to confer with the Emperor, he wrote to the king that he had finished his translation, and requested the book De Potestate Papæ.
Cranmer replied, 17 June, in a well-known letter, describing the promulgation of the sentence of divorce at Dunstable and Anne Boleyn's private marriage with Henry; also sending money.
Henry dictated what Hawkins was to say to the Emperor in justification of the divorce; and asked to contradict the report that his aunt Catherine of Aragon and the Princess Mary Tudor were ill-treated.