 Upon leaving the university the poet may have taken Holy Orders as a Roman Catholic priest and been connected with one of the religious establishments of Edinburgh.It is not known when he joined the Reformers, whether before, or subsequent to, the establishment of Protestantism, in August 1560.However about 1563 or 1564 he was admitted Minister of the united parishes of Forgandenny, Forteviot, and Muckarsie, in the Presbytery of Perth, and his name appears in the earliest "Register of Ministers, and thair Stipends, sen the year of God 1567" when he was receiving £80 sterling per annum.