Edmund Plowden (1519/20[1] – 6 February 1585) was a distinguished English lawyer, legal scholar and theorist during the late Tudor period.

[citation needed] His Roman Catholicism prevented Plowden from further promotion under Queen Elizabeth I, and he received increasing suspicion from members of the Privy Council.

At the beginning of the reign he undertook the management of the Shropshire lands of Sir Francis Englefield, an important Catholic courtier under Mary who went into exile.

[7] Plowden is noted today for his legal scholarship and theory, in his written works: A Treatise on Succession attempted to prove that Mary, Queen of Scots, was not debarred from the English throne under Henry VIII's will.

Plowden helped John Cole, husband of Alice Sandford, daughter of Richard, to gain the seat of Bishop's Castle in 1584.