He was educated at Cambridge, where he was a fellow of Trinity Hall, and in 1537, president of Queens' College.
[1] May heartily supported the Reformation, signed the Ten Articles in 1536, and helped in the production of The Institution of a Christian Man.
He had close connection with the diocese of Ely, being successively chancellor, vicar-general and prebendary.
In 1545 he was made a prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral, and, in the following year, Dean of the Order of the British Empire.
He was dispossessed during the reign of Queen Mary, but restored to the deanery on Elizabeth's accession.