In 1656 Ralph Cudworth recommended him to secretary John Thurloe as resident chaplain at Lisbon, and he held the post for several years.
On 24 February 1680 he was elected provost of Eton, in succession to Richard Allestree and in opposition to Edmund Waller the poet, who, according to Wood, ‘had tugged hard for it.’[2] In June 1695 it was reported that the deanery of Lincoln was offered him.
He died in September 1695, and was buried in Eton College Chapel.
It is recorded that though he always spoke ex tempore, he was so far from being vain of the accomplishment as occasionally to put on his spectacles, and spread out on the cushion before him a notebook really containing nothing but blank leaves.
[3] Diarist John Evelyn was acquainted with him and frequently visited him at Eton.