There are three entries in the burial register for St. Mary’s Minster Church, Reading for January, 1631 which say the deceased was apprehend for a witch.[1]

 “Jan 10. Katheren Roose, apprehended for a wich”

“Jan 13. Joane Patey, apprehended for a wich”.

“Jan 13. Anne Clinch, apprehended for a wich”

These three women had been arrested on the suspicion of witchcraft. They were probably held in the county jail in Castle Street in Reading to await trial at the next Assize Court. The next Assize court was held on the 4th day of April 1631 in Abingdon and at that court which 11 men were executed including three from Reading.[i] Conditions in jail were poor and many died in prison.[ii] It was not unusual for women accused of witchcraft to be elderly and to die due to the poor conditions in prison.[iii]

Some information about these women can be found in other local records. The published Churchwardens Account for St. Mary’s include the account for the financial year which ended 22 March 1631. In this account, there is an entry “Item for the 4^th bell for Widow Rowse 12 pence”[iv]. The 4^th bell was small and used for cheaper funeral knells.[v] As there is no other woman called Roose/Rowse buried in St. Mary’s in that year then this must refer to Katheren Roose/Rowse. This entry means she had someone to organise a modest funeral and pay for the bell. In St. Giles Parish in the south of Reading in the 17^th century, there were several women called Rowse getting married, 28 people called Rowse buried, two other Roose and two Rowse (described as poor) in St. Mary’s Parish. For Joan Paty, parish records show a Paty family in St. Laurence parish in central Reading, and William Patie paying tax as a parishioner in St. Mary’s in 1606. [vi] A cloth worker called Thomas Patie of St. Giles Parish died in 1614 leaving a will and an inventory was made of his estate[1].  Henry Patye appears as a guarantor for someone being bound over to keep the peace in 18 June 1630 and again 23^rd October 1632. For Anne Clinch, in 1578 St. Mary’s Churchwardens paid a man called Clenche for three days labour[vii] but otherwise, they don’t appear in local parish records. Local records show Katheren Roose and Joan Paty may have been from Reading families but Anne Clinch may have been from outside Reading.

1630-31 was a troubled time for Reading. This shown by the actions taken by local government during this time. In December 1630 Reading Corporation decided to raise money to help the poor by a local tax called the Poor Rate collected by the Churchwardens of each parish. This money was to be distributed by the Overseers of the Poor in each parish. There was additional money for St. Giles Parish from the Mayor’s charitable fund as there were so many poor people there and so few people who liable pay the Poor Rate. There were additional local regulations to ensure work in the cloth trade stayed in town which implies there was a shortage of this work and the Corporation took this action to keep local clothworkers employed. In January 1631 the Corporation borrowed money to buy corn for distribution to the poor in Reading which shows that the poor were struggling to buy corn.[viii] The national government was demanding increased amounts of money from places like Reading by reviving old taxes and requesting ‘voluntary’ contributions for wars aboard.[ix] During this time, the people of Reading would have been under stress and perhaps looking for someone to blame when misfortune occurred. From these circumstances, these women were accused of witchcraft and imprisoned to wait for trail and died.

---

Referenced sources

Brod, Manfred. The Case of Reading : Urban Governance in Troubled Times, 1640-1690 (Peterborough: Upfront Publishing, 2006).

Crawfurd, Gibbs Payne. The Registers of St. Mary’s, Reading 1538-1812,  Burials. Vol. 2. 2 vols (Reading: Bradley and Son, 1891).

Dils, Joan, ed. Reading St Laurence Churchwardens’ Accounts 1498-1570 Part I – Introduction and Accounts 1498-1536 Berkshire Record Society 19 (Berkshire Record Society, 2013).

Durston, Gregory. Witchcraft and Witch Trials – a History of English Witchcraft and Its Legal Perspectives, 1542 to 1736 (Chichester, England: Barry Rose Law Publishers, 2000).

Garry, Francis, and A.G. Garry, eds. The Churchwardens’ Accounts of the Parish of St. Mary’s, Reading, Berks, 1550-1662 (Reading: Blackwell, E.J., 1893).

Guilding, J. M. Diary of the Corporation of Reading V3. Vol. 3. 4 vols (London: James Parker and Co., 1896).

Sharpe, James. The Bewitching of Anne Gunter – a Horrible and True Story of Football, Murder and the King of England (London: Profile Books, 1999).

---

[1] BRO 207/171, 168/106

[i] J. M. Guilding, Diary of the Corporation of Reading V3, vol. 3 (London: James Parker and Co., 1896), 59.

[ii] Sharpe, James, The Bewitching of Anne Gunter – a Horrible and True Story of Football, Murder and the King of England (London: Profile Books, 1999), 126.

[iii] Gregory Durston, Witchcraft and Witch Trials – a History of English Witchcraft and Its Legal Perspectives, 1542 to 1736 (Chichester, England: Barry Rose Law Publishers, 2000), 334.

[iv] Francis Garry and A.G. Garry, eds., The Churchwardens’ Accounts of the Parish of St. Mary’s, Reading, Berks, 1550-1662 (Reading: Blackwell, E.J., 1893), 110.

[v] Joan Dils, ed., Reading St Laurence Churchwardens’ Accounts 1498-1570 Part I – Introduction and Accounts 1498-1536, Berkshire Record Society 19 (Berkshire Record Society, 2013), xxii.

[vi] Garry and Garry, The Churchwardens’ Accounts of the Parish of St. Mary’s, Reading, Berks, 1550-1662, 102.

[vii] Garry and Garry, 51.

[viii] Guilding, Diary of Reading Corp V3, 3:43–45.

[ix] Manfred Brod, The Case of Reading : Urban Governance in Troubled Times, 1640-1690 (Peterborough: Upfront Publishing, 2006), 18.