Edward Layfield (8 January 1605 – 7 August 1680) was a Church of England priest in the 17th century.
[1] Layfield was born on 8 January 1604/5,[2] the son of John Layfield, Rector of St Clement Danes in London and a translator of the King James Version, and his first wife Bridget (née Robinson), half-sister of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury.
[3] He entered Merchant Taylors' School, London in 1617, and matriculated at St John's College, Oxford (of which Laud was then President) in 1620, graduating B.A.
They complained to the Bishop of London and to Parliament that Layfield had set the communion table against the east wall of the church, that he had installed statues of saints to which he bowed, and 40 IHS inscriptions, and refused the sacrament to people who tried to remove them.
While celebrating a service, he was dragged from the church, placed on a horse with a prayer book tied round his neck, and made to ride through a jeering crowd, then imprisoned.