He was over forty when he went to Douay College to study for the priesthood; no details have been preserved of his earlier life. He arrived there on 18 September, 1604; received the minor orders on 16 December, 1605; the subdiaconate on 26 October, 1607; the diaconate on 31 May, 1608; and the priesthood on the following day. An oil portrait, painted shortly after the martyrdom from memory or possibly from an earlier sketch, is preserved at St. Edmund's College, Old Hall.