Poynings' wife, Katherine, inherited land in the west country and Poynings began to acquire additional land in Wiltshire, Cornwall and Somerset, as well as exchanging Westenhanger for a grant of monastic land in Dorset (including Bindon Abbey). In the 1540s, he served King Henry VIII as Marshal of Calais and keeper of the castle at Guînes, then took an active role in the invasion of France in 1544, in particular at Montreuil and the sieges of Boulogne.