Bishop Richard Challoner said he was born in Cornwall, and earlier authorities say in Devonshire.

[2] Since the Protestant Reformation had closed Catholic seminaries in England, Way went to France to study.

On 31 March 1584, he received his first tonsure in the Cathedral of Reims from the Cardinal of Guise.

He was indicted at Newgate in September 1588, for being a Roman Catholic priest.

Way, refusing to acknowledge him as a bishop or Elizabeth I as head of the church, was immediately condemned as a traitor and to death.