Edward Squire or Squier (died 1598) was an English scrivener and sailor, and an alleged conspirator against the life of Elizabeth I of England.
He was executed, after an investigation of a series of obscure circumstances led to conviction for his apparent attempts to poison Queen Elizabeth and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.
The plan was to poison the pommel of the queen's saddle, for which Squire's previous experience in the royal stables afforded him opportunities.
Squire's alleged treason was the subject of a literary war between the government and Roman Catholic apologists, and their respective versions differ in almost every detail.
It is dated 23 December 1598, and was published as a ‘Letter written out of England to an English Gentleman remaining at Padua, containing a true report of a strange conspiracie contrived betweene Edward Squire … and Richard Walpole,’ London.
A reply to the official story (attributed to Walpole) appeared as ‘The Discoverie and Confutation of a Tragicall Fiction devysed and played by Edward Squyer, yeoman soldiar … wherein the argument and fable is that he should be sent out of Spain … but the meaning and moralization thereof was to make odious the Iesuites, and by them all catholiques.