 Whythorne wrote a book of his travels in Italy, no copy of which survives.Upon his return to England, Whythorne served as a music tutor in Cambridge and London, where he survived a Bubonic plague outbreak in 1563 that killed members of his household.In 1571, he was appointed master of music at the Chapel of Archbishop Parker and published seventy-six "Songes for Three, Fower, and Five voyces", the only English secular music known to have been published between 1530 and 1588.