The Squire

The squire is a knight's loyal servant, carrying out all his needs, including shining his armor, sharpening his sword, taking care of his horse, carrying his banner, and many other duties. The squire is often the son of a lord or another knight, who has been sent to learn to be a knight himself. This servitude lasts years as the squire learns all he can from the knight and ends with the squire being knighted.

Sometimes the squire will be far braver or a better fighter than the knight he is serving and ends up saving their life. They can also be treacherous, selling out their lord in exchange for wealth or an earlier knighthood from a rival. The squire could also be suffering under an incompetent or evil knight and may be looking for a change, or they might be just as incompetent or evil as their master.

Compare with Knight, Knave, and Squire, in which the squire is part of a trio. Related to The Apprentice. See Lady-In-Waiting for the female counterpart.

Notes:

• In England from the late 17th century to the early 20th century, squire was also a title given to the leader of a village or the lord of a the largest manor in the village. They were sometimes referred to as "the squire" of the village. The term is also occasionally (typically in English works) used informally as a form of address in approximately the same way a speaker might refer to the person he is speaking to as "sir" or "pal". This trope concerns itself only with squires who are in training to become knights.
• In France, the title of "écuyer" ("squire") was kept by nobles who never became knights, even as they grew older.

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Examples

Comic Books

• The DCU: "Squire" is the traditional name of the sidekick of the Knight, a knight-themed superhero and "the Batman of England." The original Knight, Percival Sheldrake, was the squire of the Shining Knight; after Percy dies, his son and Squire Cyril takes up the mantle of the Knight and takes on his own Squire, Beryl Hutchinson, who later becomes the Knight herself.
• Marvel Universe:
  • In The Avengers it's Sean Dolan, a young Irish orphan he saves from falling off a cliff. He spends time training the young man in swordsmanship, but the entire thing goes south when Sean draws the Ebony Blade to defend Whitman's family castle and is transformed by the sword's curse into the evil supervillain Bloodwraith.
  • The third Black Knight, Dane Whitman, ends up having two different squires:
  • In Captain Britain and MI13 he ends up meeting Faiza Hussain, a civilian doctor that he saves from a Skrull attack on the UK. She eventually gains healing powers and the right to wield Excalibur and becomes a superhero in her own right, but is still content to call herself his squire (and girlfriend).

Fan Works

• In A.A. Pessimal's take on the Discworld, trainee or student Assassins take on this role when invited as support on missions: they are expected to uncomplainingly fetch, carry, maintain equipment, do the grunt work and the heavy lifting, at the behest of the senior Assassin who is leading the mission. Similarly, trainee witches perform much the same support tasks for the experienced Witch with whom they are studying the Craft.
• In The Night Unfurls, Sanakan, Hugh, Lily, and Soren are this to Black Knight Kyril Sutherland in name only. In practice, they play the role of Kyril's apprentices who either conduct operations by themselves or fight alongside their mentor, rather than servants who shines his armor, sharpens his sword, or anything like that.
• Vow of Nudity: Bren serves as Kay'la's squire, though he's comedically useless and never does anything to help, merely stands by snarking while she suffers Amusing Injuries from whatever ill-conceived situation she's gotten herself into.

Films — Animated

• In The Sword in the Stone Wart spends time as Sir Kay's squire before pulling the sword from the stone. In fact, Squire is the highest rank Wart can attain since as far as anyone knows he is not of knight-class birth.

Films — Live-Action

• William in A Knight's Tale was Sir Ector’s squire before taking his place upon his untimely death and becoming a knight himself. He wasn’t actually a noble, though. His pals Wat and Roland act as his squires as he competes as Sir Ulrich Von Lichtenstein.
• The Last Duel: Both Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris have this rank at the start of the story. Jean gets knighted during one of his military campaigns later on, while Jacques remains a squire.
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail: The Knights of the Round Table have squires, whose duties include banging coconuts together to simulate the clopping of horses hooves and taking messages via arrows to the chest. They're all played by men who are too old and don't look noble enough to be squires.
• Jacquouille (Christian Clavier) to French knight Godefroy de Montmirail in the Time Travel comedy film series Les Visiteurs. Again, Artistic License – History prevails since the actor is too old and the character is not a noble (and a moronic Pig Pen straight out of The Dung Ages and a scoundrel to boot).
• Star Wars: Padawans and Sith apprentices are essentially squires under a different name, training to become Jedi Knights and Sith Lords respectively.

Literature

• Brother Cadfael: In The Leper of Saint Giles, some of the main characters are squires, who eventually must investigate their master's murder.
• "The Confession of Brother Athelstan" centers on a knight's death at a tournament joust that proves suspicious. Among those under suspicion are the two knights' squires, one who wants to be a priest and the other has a gambling problem.
• Deryni: Squires are prevalent, and all nobly-born candidates for knighthood serve in this capacity. Prince Nigel Haldane oversees the training of pages and squires in the royal household, including his own sons and the Torenthi prince Liam-Lajos Furstán. Liam actually asks to maintain his squire's status until he returns to Torenth in King Kelson's Bride.
• Discworld: Certain guilds expect this of apprentices who are learning their trade under a Master. Similarly, trainee witches perform much the same support tasks for the experienced Witch with whom they are studying the Craft. A trainee witch does everything. And regard Mort when apprenticed to The Grim Reaper - a squire in all but name.
• Don Quixote has Sancho Panza, whom he ropes into being his squire via promises of receiving some of Quixote's lands and wealth, and by convincing the simple Panza that his delusions are real.
• The Elenium: Kurik is Sparhawk's squire. In that setting, it's an archaic position, so he's the only character with that particular title. Because he has a working class background and has held a lot of jobs, he has a practical and worldly approach to mundane problems, which most of the knights can't match. He's also stated to be as good a fighter as any of them, but has never been knighted because of his class prejudices.
• In Knight's Fee by Rosemary Sutcliff, Randal is a Saxon orphan raised to be a squire to his Norman guardian Sir Everard and eventually his best friend and foster-brother Sir Bevis. As the penniless bastard of nobody in particular, he expects this to be a life-long position rather than a step to his own knighthood.
• In A Practical Guide to Evil, the Squire is a transitional Name intended to become some form of Knight—though it emphasizes the "training to become a knight" part of the trope, with the sidekick aspect being optional. Several characters across the story become or once were Squires:
  • The protagonist, Catherine Foundling, becomes the Squire to the current Black Knight, Amadeus. Amadeus was the Squire before her.
  • Later, when Cat has long grown out of being a Squire, the (unrelated) Arthur Foundling becomes a new Squire, a member of the Order of Broken Bells having come into the Name during the Battle of the Boot. He eventually becomes a Knight Errant.
• In A Song of Ice and Fire, squires are to be found all over Westeros, serving both lords and knights. Heck, you can even find lords who worship either the Old Gods or the Lord of Light with squires who worship the Seven, the pantheon knighting is associated with. They are often extremely young, with some of the youngest being around 10 years old, although there are some older ones as well (sometimes, in special circumstances, even older than the knight they are squiring for). Some knights have more than one squire as well, due to their high status. Actual squires have rather better rights than mere wards (foster children), since they are rarely treated simply as barely-disguised hostages — the knight-squire relationship has codified, two-way cultural expectations placed on it; warding... not so much. However, going into situations where fighting (and politics) is likely is hardly risk-free, and abusive, less-than-shiny knights aren't that uncommon.
  • Podrick Payne, Tyrion Lannister's squire, is one of the more notable ones, having Undying Loyalty to his lord and being a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, saving Tyrion's life from Ser Mandon Moore of the Kingsguard during the Battle of Blackwater Bay. Later he squires for Brienne of Tarth, similarly impressing her with his loyalty and bravery; she takes more interest than Tyrion did in attending to Pod's own knightly training.
  • Lancel and Tyrek Lannister are squires for King Robert Baratheon. Different people take note of their usefulness as spies for this reason — Lancel becomes an informant for Cersei and it's implied that Tyrek may have been one for Varys either before or after his disappearance. Lancel is a hilariously incompetent Butt-Monkey until he helps kill Robert at the behest of his cousin Queen Cersei, for which he is knighted.
  • Jaime Lannister made a name for himself while still just a squire, winning his first tournament at 13 and being knighted at 15.
  • Before the start of the novels, Ser Loras Tyrell had served as Lord Renly Baratheon's squire. While their relationship is more ambiguous than in the TV series, it's implied that they became lovers during this period.
  • Josmyn Peckledon is one of Jamie's squires, and makes a name for himself at the Battle of Blackwater by killing two knights, wounding another, and capturing two more.
  • Jaime has two other squires as well due to his position as Lord Commander of the Kingsguard: Lewys Piper becomes his squire after most of the Riverlords submit to the Lannisters. Hoster Blackwood becomes a squire/hostage to Jamie after House Blackwood surrenders to the Lannisters.
  • Devan Seaworth and Bryen Farring are squires to Stannis Baratheon. Bryen dies during Stannis' march to Winterfell due to the cold, while Devan is left behind at the Wall to serve Melisandre.
  • Olyvar Frey becomes Robb Stark's squire after he becomes arranged to marry one of Lord Walder Frey's daughters/granddaughters. Even after Robb breaks the marriage pact, Olyvar wants to stay with Robb, but is forced to leave by his relatives.
  • Rollam Westerling replaces Olyvar as Robb's squire after Robb marries Rollam's older sister Jeyne.
  • Ser Barristan Selmy begins training a couple dozen squires in Meereen, all of whom used to be slaves in the city that were freed when Daenerys took the city. He ends up knighting a couple near the end of A Dance with Dragons.
  • In the Prequel series, Tales of Dunk and Egg, Ser Duncan the Tall gets the rarest of all squires, the Prince Aegon Targaryen, and future King Aegon V "The Unlikely."
• The Stormlight Archive: The Knights Radiant had squires, and they even got access to their master's Surgebinding abilities until such a times as they were chosen by a Spren and graduated to full Radiant status. At the end of Words Of Radiance the members of Bridge Four become squires to Kaladin, giving them the same powers as a Windrunner.
• In the Tortall Universe, candidates for knighthood serve as squires for four years before their final testing. Two books in particular feature their respective protagonists serving as squires: In the Hand of the Goddess, the second book of Song of the Lioness, and Squire, the third book of Protector of the Small.
• P.N. Elrod’s Keeper of the King trilogy has Lady Sabra disguising herself as a boy to be Richard/Lancelot’s squire. It’s helpful since he’d be in trouble if outed as a vampire, and she’s the vampire who turned him.
• The White Company: Alleyne becomes squire to sir Nigel, and we see him attending to far more duties than just battle preparations, including spellchecking his knight's letters (sir Nigel has notoriously poor eyesight) and making sure lady Maude's recommendations are followed to the letter. He's not the only squire, but is the only one to survive to the end, and after Alleyne is knighted and marries sir Nigel's daughter, Hordle John becomes his squire. The prequel Sir Nigel shows Nigel's own advancement from squire to knight.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons: In the 1st Edition supplement Unearthed Arcana, characters in the Cavalier subclass start off at level 0 and -1500 Experience Points and act as a retainer (squire) of another Cavalier of 4th level or higher. After the new cavalier earns enough Experience Points to reach 4th level, they become a full-fledged cavalier and can acquire retainers of their own.
• Pendragon: Boys can become squires to a knight. They serve the knight and learn how to be knights, and if they're good enough they could earn knighthood.

Video Games

• Armello: The Squire card is a follower who will be Taking the Bullet if the hero they're equipped to dies. In lore, the rabbit hero Amber had a frog squire named Guppy who was killed by a Slashed Throat courtesy of a group of bandits
• Conqueror's Blade: The Heraldic page of the tech tree features Squires as a low-tier knightly unit (to be replaced by the more powerful Men-at-Arms and Monastic Knights further up the tree).
• Dragon Age: Squires are mentioned a few times:
  • King Calenhad Theirin, the founder of Fereldan, was only a squire when he won his first battle and the lords began swearing to serve him.
  • Nathaniel Howe served for eight years as a squire in the Free Marches, and was thus not in Fereldan during the events of Dragon Age: Origins.
• Final Fantasy Tactics: Ramza is only a squire when circumstances caused him to abandon his training for knighthood. Though his power steadily increases throughout the game, he remains a squire and never officially becomes a knight. Nonetheless, his unique Squire class gains a bevy of powerful abilities, including the ability to wield the powerful swords that normally only Knights can wield.
• In Help The Hero you play as Percy, a beleaguered Hypercompetent Sidekick squire to the idiot hero, who only wins battles because Percy carefully manages his equipment for him.
• Heroes of Might and Magic: The narrator of the first campaign in IV is the squire of Lord Lysander, the regent ruler of Palaendra (Lysander refuses to accept the crown until it's discovered that he's of royal blood). At the end of the campaign, Lysander dismisses him as his squire... to grant him the mayorship of a city.
• Infernax: Cervul is Alcedor's trustworthy squire who accompanies him as the Player 2 character. He's so much of a Yes-Man to his lord that only Alcedor can make moral choices, as Cervul will automatically agree with what Alcedor decides to do.
• Overwatch: Brigitte Lindholm started out as this to her godfather, Reinhardt Wilhelm. However, after seeing him get battered in battle and fearing for his life in his old age, she decided to take a more active role and now accompanies him in battle.
• In Fallout 3 the Brotherhood of Steel has children among their garrison designated as Squires. These child squires wear Brotherhood uniforms and are apparently receiving training and education from Brotherhood scholars known as Scribes. One such squire is a young rather shy lad named Arthur Maxson, a descendant of the Brotherhood's founder. In Fallout 4 we find that the former Squire Maxson is now the Elder of the entire chapter, largely due to fame from having accompanied a squad of Knights on patrol and killing the deathclaw that wiped out his squad. Apparently Elder Maxson has now decreed that child squires must now accompany Knights on combat missions on a regular basis. If you join the Brotherhood, you can take on missions where you take a squire with you, go somewhere and kill mutants or ghouls. Thankfully the squire is marked as "essential" so s/he cannot be killed in these missions.
• Jot, the titular hero of The Plucky Squire, is everything a good squire should be — a brave adventurer that defends the storybook land of Mojo.

Webcomics

• In El Goonish Shive, Noah seems to consider himself something of a squire to Adrian Raven as he tends to call him "sir" and claims to have knighted him.
• The Order of the Stick: Elan is shown working as a squire to a paladin, Sir Francois, in prequel On the Origin of PCs. Francois, however, ditches Elan when Elan's incompetence leads to them getting robbed while they sleep at an inn. Elan's dismayed "Not again!" reaction when he wakes up indicates that this isn't the first time he was ditched like this.

Western Animation

• My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "Would-Be Dragonslayer", Alonzo is a roving squire and yearns to be a knight, but must first perform a heroic deed.
• Sofia the First: Prince James has always been enamored by knights and adventure (and canons), so in "The Silent Knight," he becomes a squire for Sir Finnegan. He quickly gets fed up with all the boring tasks he needs to do, but after some encouragement decides to stick with it. After learning he isn't next in line to the throne, he properly dedicates himself to becoming a knight. Of course, Enchancia also has a dedicated school for future knights, so the squire process might not necessarily be required.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil:
  • In Season 3, Marco becomes a Squire after deciding he wants to be a Knight of Mewni, and doesn't care if he has to endure years of it. Due to there not being any knights in need of squires, Princess Star (taking a page from Eclipsa) bends the rules to make him her squire. The improbability of that is Lampshaded, but...
    Marco: Wait a minute, do princesses have squires?
    Star: I'm a princess. I can do what I want.
  • "Trial By Squire" features the squires of several other knights, who all have much more realistic duties to their own knights, and a bit of a grudge against Marco for what they see as him getting handed a job he didn't earn. But then, Star reminds him that he is a squire in name only, and what's more important to her is their friendship.

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