I didn't think I needed to clarify which James! (Has our host been combating witches and nobody told me?) I meant witches in the contemporary sense of "servants of satan", even in our world rich white men (see, John Dee) were able to muck around in mystical matters without much risk of being hung or burned: I'd imagine in a world with working magic, there would be more fine-grained distinctions on which magic users to employ and which to throw away.