A tightly knit group of powerful county landowners, all protestant and close associates of the and Earl of Bedford, monopolized both county seats in the first four Parliaments of the reign. Bedford was lord lieutenant of the county and Sir Peter Carew of Mohun’s Ottery (1559), Sir John St. Leger of Annery in Monkleigh (1559), Sir Gawain Carew of Exeter (1563) and Sir John Chichester of Great Torrington (1563) were all at one time his deputy lieutenants. Peter Edgecombe (1571) had his main residences of Mount Edgecumbe and Cotehele just over the border in Cornwall, but he none the less held substantial lands in Devon. Arthur Bassett of Umberleigh (1572) was a first-ranking landowner in the county and son-in-law of Sir John Chichester. By 1584, however, Sir Peter Carew and Sir John Chichester were dead, and Sir John St. Leger and Sir Gawain Carew were old and infirm. Bedford himself was not the power he once was, and died in 1585. Arthur Bassett does not appear to have inclined towards a parliamentary career, for having sat once for his local borough and once for the county, he did not try to sit again in 1584, and by 1586 he too was dead. In the face of strong competition from Sir William Courtenay I of Powderham and Walter Ralegh, the courtier who was linked through his father’s marriages to all the most powerful Devonshire families, Peter Edgecombe retired to a borough seat in Cornwall in 1584. After Bedford’s death Walter Ralegh stepped into his office of warden of the stannaries. He represented Devon a second time in 1586 with John Chudleigh of Ashton, who had been on Sir Humphrey Gilbert’s last expedition and was part of the Gilbert and Ralegh circle. Sir William Courtenay was absent in Ireland in 1586, but in 1589, when he was deputy lieutenant of the county, he took the senior seat, and he sat again in 1601. The remaining MPs were all obvious choices to represent Devon in Parliament. George Carey of Cockington was no doubt helped to his election in 1588 by his relative and namesake of Clovelly, sheriff that year.

Rarely in this period did knights of the shire represent more than one county, but two of Devon’s MPs did: Edgecombe, who sat for Devon and Cornwall, and Ralegh, who was unrivalled in representing three counties, Devon, Dorset and Cornwall.