After spending ten years with the solicitor he enlisted in the English army in the Low Countries in 1627 or 1628, but finding that he did not care for military life, he deserted after a month and went to Brabant.

Having no aptitude in supervising young boys, he was then sent to serve as chaplain to Colonel Sir Henry Gage's English regiment in the service of Spain, based near Ghent.

[2] When Gage returned to England in the spring of 1644 to aid King Charles I, Wright went with him, first to Oxford and then to the relief of Basing House, the seat of John Paulet, 5th Marquess of Winchester.

The evidence at Wright's trial was provided by the informer Thomas Gage, apostate brother of the late Sir Henry and a renegade Dominican priest.

His execution at Tyburn, London on a hot Whit Monday, 19 May 1651, took place before over twenty thousand spectators,[4] including a number of Jesuits in disguise, on hand to give their friend absolution.