Bell received the habit of the Franciscan Order at Segovia, Spain on 8 August 1618, and shortly after the completion of his novitiate and ordination to the priesthood, was called from Spain to labour in the restoration of the English province of the Franciscans. He was one of the first members of the Franciscan community at Douai, where he subsequently fulfilled the offices of guardian and professor of Hebrew. In 1632 Bell was sent to Scotland as first provincial of the Franciscan province there; but his efforts to restore the order in Scotland were unsuccessful. In 1637 he returned to England, where he laboured until November 1643, when he was apprehended by the parliamentary troops at Stevenage in Hertfordshire on suspicion of being a spy. A search of his papers provided evidence that he was a Roman Catholic priest, and on that basis he was committed to the Newgate prison.