He was admitted as a student of
Brasenose College, Oxford, on 26 October 1553, when aged about 18, and supplicated for the degree of B.A. on 26 April 1555. Soon afterwards he left for Germany with his uncle
Alexander Nowell and remained abroad until the accession of Queen
Elizabeth I in 1558. On 25 April 1560 he was ordained a
deacon by
Edmund Grindal,
Bishop of London, and he proceeded to priest on 4 June 1560. Woolton found patrons in
William Alley,
Bishop of Exeter, and
Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford,
Lord Lieutenant of Devon (1584-5). He was appointed to the rectory of
Sampford Peverell (16 August 1561), to the rectory of
Whimple, the vicarage of
Braunton (4 May 1570), and to the rectory of
Kenn (15 October 1573), all in
Devon. A canonry at
Exeter was conferred on him in March 1565; he read a divinity lecture there twice a week and preached twice every Sunday, and during the plague in the city during the summer of 1570 he attended the sick. By the new charter, dated 28 July 1578, Woolton, probably through his uncle's influence, was constituted the first warden of the
collegiate church of Manchester. On 11 October in that year Bridget, Countess of Bedford, recommended him to Lord Burghley as a fitting person to fill the vacant bishopric of Exeter. He was duly appointed to the see, supplicated for the degrees of B.D. and D.D. at Oxford on 26 May 1579, and was consecrated in the archiepiscopal chapel at
Croydon on 2 August 1579. As the bishopric had become of small value, Woolton was allowed to hold with it the place of
archpriest at
Haccombe in Devon (20 October 1581) and the rectory of
Lezant in
Cornwall (1584). Woolton remodelled the statutes at
Exeter Cathedral. In 1581 he deprived Anthony Randal, parson of
Lydford, a follower of the
Family of Love, and made others who had accepted the Family's doctrines recant in the cathedral. Many strong accusations, some amounting to fraudulent misgovernment, were made against his running of the diocese to the
archbishop of Canterbury in 1585. His answers to the charges were satisfactory, though he was obliged to admit his comparative poverty, and that he had placed his son in jail. ==Land purchases==