Have you ever noticed that witches in stories have little cottages out in the woods away from everyone? The implication is that they stay away from villages that might turn against them. But what if it has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with geography.
Specifically, what if witches are like Jaguars and polar bears. They are solitary, territorial, and violent to trespassers. A witch in the woods is claiming her territory—an area defined by resource density or something like that. Because they're in the middle of nowhere and defend large areas, that makes them more visible. But other witches have their own territories in urban areas.
Queen Elizabeth I claimed London, and Mary tried to sieze that territory for her own. It looked like a battle for monarchy, but it was actually an encroachment of one witch into another's territory.