Why did the Government regard witchcraft as such a problem ?

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Why did the Government in the 16th and 17th centuries regard witchcraft as such a problem?

During the middle Ages, the crime of witchcraft had been considered an offence against the church (crime against authority) and was punished by the Church like heresy. It was not very common and punished very lightly, in the 16th century this began to change and new laws became to be brought in by people like Henry VIII who decided to impose a death sentence for witchcraft, Mary Tudor who distinguished between minor and major forms of witchcraft, but when James I came into power he brought all the rules together.

The reasons for the monarch's sudden changes about the seriousness of the crime were due to religious upheavals through out Europe in the 16th century. The Reformation put Catholics against Protestants and both accused the other of heresy. Witchcraft was drawn into this conflict and became the target of Catholics and Protestants alike that saw it as their religious duty to tackle the growing problem of the practice of witchcraft.

Ordinary people became worried about the problem when it started to turn there lives into turmoil and uncertainty. The widespread