Adam Squire
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Adam Squire or Squier (died 1588){{cite book|author=Thomas Harwood|author-link=Thomas Harwood (priest)|title=The History and Antiquities of the Church and City of Lichfield:: Containing Its Ancient and Present State, Civil and Ecclesiastical; Collected from Various Public Records, and Other Authentic Evidences|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N3tbAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA221|accessdate=16 July 2013|year=1806|publisher=Cadell and Davies, London|page=221}} was an English churchman and academic, Master of Balliol College, Oxford, from 1571 to 1580,{{cite book|author1=Alexander Chalmers|author2=James Sargant Storer|author3=John Greig (engraver)|title=A history of the colleges, halls, and public buildings, attached to the University of Oxford: including the lives of the founders|url=https://archive.org/details/ahistorycollege01greigoog|accessdate=16 July 2013|year=1810|publisher=Printed by Collingwood and Co.|page=[https://archive.org/details/ahistorycollege01greigoog/page/n563 477]}} and Archdeacon of Middlesex from 1577.{{cite book|author1=John Le Neve|author2=Thomas Duffus Hardy|title=Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae: or a calendar of the principal ecclesiast. dignitaries in England and Wales, and of the chief officers in the univ. of Oxford and Cambridge, from the earliest time to the year 1760 : in 3 vol|url=https://archive.org/details/fastiecclesiaean02leneuoft|accessdate=16 July 2013|year=1854|publisher=University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/fastiecclesiaean02leneuoft/page/330 330]}}
Life
Squire graduated B.A. at Balliol College in 1560, and became a Fellow that year, graduating M.A. in 1564.[https://www.british-history.ac.uk/alumni-oxon/1500-1714/pp1394-1422 Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714, Spackman-Stepney] He became vicar of Cumnor in 1568, and accumulated other preferments, being canon of St Paul's Cathedral in 1577.{{cite web |url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=119389 |title=Spackman-Stepney |editor=Joseph Foster |publisher=Institute of Historical Research |year=1891 |work=Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714 |accessdate=16 July 2013 }}
Squire's suspicions of Robert Persons were instrumental in forcing Persons, who was Dean of Balliol College, to resign his fellowship in 1574. They had clashed when Persons was Senior Bursar in 1572–73. Squire had an ally among the Fellows in Christopher Bagshaw.{{cite book|author=John Jones|title=Balliol College: A History, Second Edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=66ILtB9wQX8C&pg=PA77|accessdate=16 July 2013|date=10 July 1997|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-920181-5|pages=77–8}}
Squire himself had a reputation for dealings with the supernatural. It was alleged against him by Persons that he sold familiar spirits, in the form of a fly, to gamblers; or, in the term "dycing flies", the word fly was then a synonym for familiar.{{cite book|author=Thomas A. Green|title=Folklore: An Enycyclopedia of Beliefs, Customs, Tales, Music, and Art|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S7Wfhws3dFAC&pg=PA277|accessdate=16 July 2013|year=1997|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-0-87436-986-1|pages=277–8}}{{cite journal |last1=Allen |first1=Hope Emily |title=Influence of Superstition on Vocabulary: Two Related Examples |journal=PMLA |date=1935 |volume=50 |issue=4 |pages=1033–1046 |doi=10.2307/458106 |jstor=458106 |s2cid=163754376 }} The charge came close to losing Squire his post as Master.{{cite book|author=Brian Vickers|author-link=Brian Vickers (academic)|title=Occult Scientific Mentalities|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s9n_JO8nkGEC&pg=PA86|accessdate=16 July 2013|date=27 June 1986|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-33836-3|page=86}} Richard Harvey, in defending his own practice of astrology, mentioned Squire among other academics as sympathetic to it.{{cite journal |last1=Bauckham |first1=Richard |title=Science and Religion in the Writings of Dr. William Fulke |journal=The British Journal for the History of Science |date=1975 |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=17–31 |doi=10.1017/S0007087400013686 |jstor=4025814 |s2cid=145803131 |doi-access=free }} According to Balliofergus he was "a great Mathematician".Frances de Paravicini, Early History of Balliol College (1891), p. 324; [https://archive.org/stream/earlyhistoryofba00para#page/324/mode/2up archive.org.]
Squire embezzled a legacy given to the college.[http://archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk/History/gazetteer.asp archives.balliol.ox.ac.uk Balliol College Archives & Manuscripts.] Around 1580 he was paid off by the Jesuit George Gilbert to turn a blind eye to the development of a Catholic association of young men in the area (Farringdon Without) of Chancery Lane or Fetter Lane.{{cite ODNB|id=10689|title=Gilbert, George|first=Thomas H.|last=Clancy}} In 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, and also his death, he was given custody of a leading recusant, Walter Fowler.{{cite book|author=Michael W. Greenslade|title=Catholic Staffordshire 1500-1850|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_V1eKWlX9EQC&pg=PA59|accessdate=16 July 2013|year=2006|publisher=Gracewing Publishing|isbn=978-0-85244-655-3|page=59}}
Family
Squire married a daughter of John Aylmer, the bishop of London to whom he was personal chaplain, by 1587.{{cite book|author=John Jones|title=Balliol College: A History, Second Edition|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=66ILtB9wQX8C&pg=PA60|accessdate=16 July 2013|date=10 July 1997|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-920181-5|page=60}}{{cite book|author=Jane Stevenson|title=Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender, And Authority, From Antiquity To The Eighteenth Century|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sb9lY_ZR-M8C&pg=PA270|accessdate=16 July 2013|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-818502-4|page=270 note 84}} Their son, John, was a Cambridge graduate, and became vicar of St Leonard's, Shoreditch.{{acad|SKR600J|Squier, John}}Ralph Churton, The Life of Alexander Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's (1809) p. 297; [https://archive.org/stream/lifeofalexandern00chur#page/296/mode/2up archive.org.]
John Strype relates that Squire preached his own wedding sermon, that he was unfaithful to his wife, and that Squire fabricated an affair she was having. Finding out about this, his father-in-law the bishop "cudgelled" him. Further, he ran up debts, and his estate was put into administration. John Squire was brought up by Theophilus Aylmer, son of the bishop.{{cite book|author=John Strype|title=Historical Collections of the Life and Acts of the Right Rev. Father in God, John Aylmer: Lord Bishop of London, in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Wherein are Explained Many Transactions of the Church of England and what Methods Were Then Taken to Preserve It, with Respect Both to the Papist and Puritan|url=https://archive.org/details/historicalcollec00stryuoft|accessdate=16 July 2013|year=1821|publisher=Clarendon Press|pages=[https://archive.org/details/historicalcollec00stryuoft/page/n148 123]–6}}
Notes
{{Reflist}}
{{Masters of Balliol College, Oxford}}
{{University of Oxford|state=collapsed}}
{{Authority control}}
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Category:Year of birth missing
Category:16th-century English Anglican priests