The monopoly of violence as a central pillar of Elias’s state formation theory is here re-examined through witchcraft prosecutions in early modern England and Scotland, revealing how the rise of secular witchcraft trials reflected the liminal position of the monarchy within a fractured religious landscape. The concept of the divine right of kings is shown to have underpinned monarchical attempts to centralise both physical and spiritual authority, exemplified through James VI/I’s personal involvement in witch trials and his text Daemonologie. Mass prosecutions are then understood as responses to challenges to centralised authority, coinciding with periods of constitutional crisis, religious division, and civil unrest in both England and Scotland. Analysis of institutional violence reveals cultural differences between England and Scotland regarding torture, whilst examination of mob violence demonstrates the fragility of state monopolies when confronted with collective action. The chapter primarily argues that whilst initial witchcraft prosecutions served as centripetal mechanisms for monarchical consolidation of power, the internalisation of witch fears into psychogenesis and sociogenesis eventually shifted conditioning away from monarchical associations. This cultural drift produced an increasing disconnect between popular understandings of acceptable violence and state approaches, ultimately revealing witchcraft prosecutions as sites where the incomplete nature of pacification processes and the vulnerability of emergent state monopolies on violence were most clearly exposed.