The Russell family owned the manor of Tavistock, and the and Earl of Bedford was responsible for the return of the Elizabethan Members until 1586, with the exception of Thomas Williams (1559), who owed this and his earlier elections for the borough to Sir Richard Edgecombe^†. Edmund Tremayne (1559), a returned Marian exile, had entered Bedford’s service during Mary’s reign. Richard Cooke I (1563) was the brother of Bedford’s daughter-in-law, though pressure to elect him may have come from Cecil. Sir Nicholas Throckmorton was a close friend and puritan, as was Lord Keeper Bacon, father of Nathaniel (1571, 1572) and Edward (1584). Robert Farrar (1571, 1572) had been secretary to the late Earl of Rutland, whose widow married Bedford. Bedford’s stepson, Charles Morison, replaced Farrar in 1576. Valentine Knightley, of the Northamptonshire gentry family, was elected both in 1584 and in 1586, by which time Bedford was dead. His successor’s guardian, the Earl of Warwick, is known to have written to many western boroughs, probably including Tavistock, asking for nominations. Knightley was related to Warwick by marriage. John Glanville (1586) was the son of a local merchant and a servant of the Russell family. Both the 1589 MPs were courtiers.

Michael Heneage probably owed his seat to the friendship between his brother, the vice-chamberlain, and the Earl of Warwick. Anthony Ashley had recently been made a clerk of the Privy Council and no doubt someone in the government circle, probably Hatton, arranged his return with the Earl of Warwick. At the time of the 1595 election the 3rd Earl of Bedford, just of age, may have been abroad. The senior seat went to Richard Codrington, who had slight connexions with the Russells, while the junior seat was taken by Hugh Vaughan, steward of the Russell lands in the west. In 1597 Valentine Knightley was elected a third time at Tavistock, the Yelvertons having pre-empted his former seat at Northampton, and possibly it was Knightley who secured the return of Edward Montagu II as his fellow. In 1601 the senior seat was taken by Henry Grey, later 8th Earl of Kent, whose family was connected by marriage with the Russells, their neighbours in Bedfordshire. His colleague was Peter Wentworth’s son Walter, a servant of the 3rd Earl of Bedford.6