Edward Floyd

Edward Floyd, Floud or Lloyd (died 1648) was an Englishman impeached and sentenced by the House of Commons in 1621 for speaking disparagingly of Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

Floyd was a Roman Catholic barrister. He became steward in Shropshire to Lord Chancellor Ellesmere and Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk.

In 1621, when he was in the Fleet Prison at the instance of the Privy Council, he was impeached in the House of Commons for having said:

I have heard that Prague is taken; and Goodman Palsgrave and Goodwife Palsgrave have taken their heels; and as I have heard, Goodwife Palsgrave is taken prisoner.

These words, it was alleged, were spoken by him in a scornful manner, to insult the Prince Palatine and his wife Elizabeth of Bohemia, who was daughter to James I of England. The case led to an important constitutional decision. Shortly before the case, the Commons had looked for precedents supporting their judicial role. They found none except in cases of contempt for the house. During the proceedings against Floyd they obfuscated these findings, but later had to concede the point.

The case came to the House of Commons on 30 April. By then it had been in session since February, but had done nothing related to the situation in Bohemia, where Elector Palatine and his English wife had been heavily defeated in a conflict that formed the first phase of the Thirty Years War. On that day the influential parliamentarian Sir Edwin Sandys encouraged the Commons to take punitive action. The feeling of the House was that in this matter they could make their mark in foreign policy, not otherwise in their remit.

The Commons agreed on 1 May that Floyd should pay a fine of £1,000, stand in the pillory in three different places for two hours each time, and be carried from place to place on a horse without a saddle, with his face towards the horse's tail, and holding the tail in his hand. The king, however, objected to the Commons taking up the matter. The next morning he sent to inquire upon what precedents the Commons grounded their claim to act as a judicial body in regard to offences which did not concern their privileges. He also pointed out that they had failed to get his approval, and had not granted Floyd due process. Sandys by now had thought better of the course of direct judgement on Floyd; he argued that as the Speaker had signed nothing, the decision of the Commons was not yet effective. The momentum of the House was against him. Sir Edward Coke pushed for action, invoking his favoured view of the Commons as court of record. William Noy warned against passing judgement on overseas matters.

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