Sir Edmund Plowden (1590 – July 1659 in Lydbury North, Shropshire, England) also titled Lord Earl Palatinate, Governor and Captain-General of the Province of New Albion in North America was an explorer and colonial governor who attempted to colonize North America in the mid-seventeenth century under a grant for a colony to be named New Albion. This attempt, fraught with mutiny, legal woes, lack of funds, and bad timing and compromised by Plowden's ill-temper, was a failure, and Plowden returned to England in 1649.

The grandson of the eminent jurist, Edmund Plowden (1515–1585), Sir Edmund Plowden was born in 1590 to Francis Plowden (1562–1652) of Shiplake Court in Oxfordshire and Wokefield Park in Berkshire and his wife, Mary Fermor. Plowden married Mabel Marriner (1596–1674) in 1609.

This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (May 2014)

• Edward C. Carter II and Clifford Lewis III "Sir Edmund Plowden and the New Albion Charter, 1632-1785" in The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (April 1959).
• Clifford Lewis III. "Some Extracts Relating to Sir Edmund Plowden and Others from the Lost Minutes of the Virginia Council and General Court: 1642-1645" and "Some Notes on Sir Edmund Plowden's Attempts to Settle His Province of New Albion" in William and Mary Historical Quarterly (January 1940).
• Charles Varlo The Grant of King Charles the First, to Sir Edmund Plowden, Earl Palatine of Albion, of the Province of New Albion, in America, June 21, A.D., 1634 (1785) (Collection of the New York Public Library).

• Plowden Family Website: The Descendants of Edmund Plowden I