Born about 1553, Edward was educated at Exeter College, Oxford, where he took his bachelor's degree in 1574.
He there made the acquaintance of Anthony Babington, a Catholic courtier, who early in 1586 was maturing, at the instigation of a Jesuit, a plan for a general rising of the Catholics which should accomplish the murder of the queen and the liberation of Mary Stuart, at that time imprisoned at Chartley.
Habington not only joined Babington's conspiracy with other young frequenters of the court, but was named one of the six conspirators charged with the contemplated murder of Elizabeth.
Habington, found at the end of August in hiding near the residence of his family in Worcestershire, was thrown into the Tower of London.
According to Raphael Holinshed, Edward Habington was the last of the first group of seven convicted conspirators to be executed.