After being summoned to the court of Anne Boleyn he became her chaplain. Through her influence he was appointed dean of the college of secular canons at Stoke-by-Clare in Suffolk in 1535, a post he held until 1547. The college had been secularised in 1514. The duties of the residents involved regular performance of the offices of the Church and prayers for the founder's family, but little direction was provided in the statutes for other times during the day, and there was little to do for the residents beyond their daily tasks and the education of the choirboys. It had come close to be acquired by Wolsey, but this had been prevented by the intervention of the Bishop of Norwich and Henry VIII's first wife, Catherine.