Witches did not become extinct, or go away for some unknown reason, but instead the
responsibility for their ‘disappearance’, as with their creation, should be linked to the attitude of the
English, Scottish and the majority of the European hierarchies. Having been the manufactured
product of the ‘labelling and scapegoating’ perspective of these regimes, this ‘deviant’ was to be
increasingly considered unfashionable by the authorities after 1650, and consequently inadequate
for strategies to protect their respective status quos.