 After associating with the Puritan party in the Church, he joined the Brownists, but submitted to the Church of England after being arrested in London, and again when he was arrested in Ireland.By 1597, Ainsworth moved to Amsterdam and found a home in "a blind lane at Amsterdam", working as porter to a bookseller, and lived in severe poverty.According to Roger Williams, Ainsworth ‘lived on 9d a week with roots boiled’.