Though the borough of Plympton Earl (or Erle as it eventually became) had existed since the twelfth century, it obtained a charter of incorporation only in 1602.3 A stannary town, the local tin mining families of Strode and Southcote provided a number of its Members. Richard Strode (1559), though no doubt able to secure his own return, would have been highly acceptable to the and Earl of Bedford, who, as warden of the stannaries, appears responsible for the return of the remaining Members in the 1559 and 1563 Parliaments and the senior Members in the next two Parliaments, with some reservations due to insufficient knowledge about Percy and Guynes. Bedford died in 1585, but both the 1586 Members were connected with his family. Roger Hill, the junior Member in 1571, was related to the Courtenay family, who had formerly owned the manor of Plympton. The remaining Elizabethan Members were all local men, or friends of local families.