In his youth he accompanied his father to the marriage of Princess Mary (sister of King Henry VIII), to King Louis XII of France. He returned to France during the 1520s, fighting with distinction around Calais. In July 1523 after the taking of Morlaix, he was invested as a Knight by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey and succeeded to his father's title in November 1529. In 1536 he was one of the 27 peers at the trial of his second cousin Queen Anne Boleyn. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries he acquired much former monastic property. At home he served as a Justice of the Peace for Kent. In 1544 he occupied a high command in the English army which invaded Scotland; later that year he was appointed commanding officer of Calais, a personal possession of the king. He was made a Knight of the Garter on 24 April 1549.