 Strype, in his account of this contest, describes Dr Babington as "a man of mean learning and of a complying temper", but he failed in his candidature.He seems by this time to have been losing Leicester's favour, and was more than suspected of being a concealed Papist.In 1563, he had to resign the rectorship of Lincoln College, and two years later was forced to flee overseas, where he is said to have died in 1569.