Mary I died in May 1558 and was succeeded by her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth. Walsingham returned to England and through the support of one of his fellow former exiles, Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, he was elected to Elizabeth's first parliament as the member for Bossiney, Cornwall, in 1559. At the subsequent election in 1563, he was returned for both Lyme Regis, Dorset, another constituency under Bedford's influence, and Banbury, Oxfordshire. He chose to sit for Lyme Regis. In January 1562 he married Anne, daughter of Sir George Barne, Lord Mayor of London in 1552–3, and widow of wine merchant Alexander Carleill. Anne died two years later leaving her son Christopher Carleill in Walsingham's care. In 1566, Walsingham married Ursula St. Barbe, widow of Sir Richard Worsley, and Walsingham acquired her estates of Appuldurcombe and Carisbrooke Priory on the Isle of Wight. The following year, she bore him a daughter, Frances. Walsingham's other two stepsons, Ursula's sons John and George, were killed in a gunpowder accident at Appuldurcombe in 1567.