§7 Sovereign Immunity, the Divine Right of Kings, and the Rise of Legal Authority

The doctrines of sovereign immunity and the divine right of kings share ideological roots in the construction of monarchical authority and the insulation of rulers from accountability.

Under Edward I (r. 1272–1307), English jurisprudence established that the monarch could not be sued in his own courts. This principle asserted that justice emanated from the crown, not upon it, thus institutionalizing a legal divide between ruler and subject (Pollock & Maitland, 1899). Sovereign immunity functioned as a constitutional firewall, securing the king from civil liability (lawsuits) and reinforcing hierarchical feudalism.

Three centuries later, James VI of Scotland — later James I of England — recast Edward’s legal prerogative into theological doctrine. In The True Law of Free Monarchies (1598), James insisted that kings were divinely appointed and accountable only to God. His writings were embedded into Scottish textbooks (James VI, 1598/2009). This fusion of religion and monarchy placed the crown above both law and reason, shielding it from secular judgment. In another publication released in 1599, Basilikon Doron, he wrote:

“The state of monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth, for kings are not only God’s lieutenants upon earth and sit upon God’s throne, but even by God himself they are called gods. There be three principal [comparisons] that illustrate the state of monarchy… In the Scriptures kings are called gods, and so their power after a certain relation compared to the Divine power. Kings are also compared to fathers of families; for a king is truly parens patriae [parent of the country], the politic father of his people.  And lastly, kings are compared to the head of this microcosm of the body of man….

Kings are justly called gods, for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon earth: for if you will consider the attributes to God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a king. God hath power to create or destroy, make or unmake at his pleasure, to give life or send death, to judge all and to be judged nor accountable to none….

[T]o dispute what God may do is blasphemy— so is it sedition in subjects to dispute what a king may do in the height of his power. But just kings will ever be willing to declare what they will do, if they will not incur the curse of God. I will not be content that my power be disputed upon; but I shall ever be willing to make the reason appear of all my doings, and rule my actions according to my laws… I would wish you to be careful to avoid three things in the matter of grievances:

First, that you do not meddle with the main points of government; that is my craft… to meddle with that were to lesson me… I must not be taught my office.

Secondly, I would not have you meddle with such ancient rights of mine as I have received from my predecessors. All novelties are dangerous as well in a politic as in a natural body. And therefore I would be loath to be quarreled in my ancient rights and possessions, for that were to judge me unworthy of that which my predecessors had and left me.

And lastly, I pray you beware to exhibit for grievance anything that is established by a settled law. You know I will never give a plausible answer; for it is an undutiful part in subjects to press their king, wherein they know beforehand,” (James VI, 1598/2009, p. 65).

§8 John Locke Refutes the Divine Right of Kings

Portrait of John Locke by Godfrey Kneller (1697)

In 1683, English philosopher John Locke fled to the Netherlands after being implicated in the Rye House Plot — a failed conspiracy to assassinate James’ grandson and heir, King Charles II, and his brother James, Duke of York. Though Locke’s involvement is disputed, his connection to radical Whig figures like Lord Shaftesbury made him a target of royal suspicion (Laslett, 1988).

Lord Shaftesbury, Locke’s longtime patron, was considered a radical for opposing royal absolutism (consolidation of power under a monarch) and backing the Exclusion Bill to block a Catholic succession — actions that linked him to Whig conspirators and heightened scrutiny of his allies (Mansfield, 2021).

During Locke’s exile from England (1683–1689), he witnessed firsthand the consequences of unchecked monarchical authority and the suppression of dissent. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685 — resulting in the violent persecution of French Protestants — served as a stark reminder of the dangers of absolutism (Slavery Law & Power, 2025). Locke observed how continental monarchs employed censorship, religious uniformity, and judicial centralization to silence opposition. These experiences shaped his powerful defense of religious toleration and popular sovereignty.

Locke’s response to divine-right theory came through his anonymously published Two Treatises of Government (1689), drafted largely while in exile. The First Treatise dismantled Sir Robert Filmer’s patriarchal justification for monarchy, arguing that all legitimate government must derive from the consent of the governed — not divine appointment. The Second Treatise advanced Locke’s natural law theory, enshrining individual rights, the social contract, and the right to revolution. These ideas laid the intellectual foundation for England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the rise of constitutional monarchy under William and Mary (Britannica, 2025).

Locke argued that political authority comes from the people, not from God, and that rulers who fail to protect the people’s rights can be removed. From his second treatise:

“Where an appeal to the law, and constituted judges, lies open, but the remedy is denied by a manifest perverting of justice, and a barefaced wresting of the laws to protect or indemnify the violence or injuries of some men, or party of men, there it is hard to imagine any thing but a state of war: for wherever violence is used, and injury done, though by hands appointed to administer justice, it is still violence and injury, however coloured with the name, pretences, or forms of law, the end whereof being to protect and redress the innocent, by an unbiassed application of it, to all who are under it; wherever that is not bona fide done, war is made upon the sufferers, who having no appeal on earth to right them, they are left to the only remedy in such cases, an appeal to heaven,“ (Locke, 1690).

John Locke would later become the most quoted political author by early American revolutionaries, his writings being a chief catalyst for the American Revolutionary War. 

§9 The Broad Arrow Policy, The Slave Trade, and Colonial Rebellion

Beginning in the late 17th century, the British Crown sought dominion over New England’s towering Eastern White Pines (Pinus strobus), trees that often reached heights over 150 feet and were prized by the Royal Navy for constructing ship masts (Cox, 2003; Nelma, 2025a). As Europe’s native forests were depleted, the Crown turned to colonial forests to sustain both its warships and merchant fleet — including ships actively engaged in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.

From 1560 to 1807, the Royal Navy provided protection and escort services to British vessels involved in trafficking enslaved Africans across the Atlantic (Cox, 2003). This connection sharpened tensions among colonists, particularly in New England, where many viewed slavery as morally abhorrent and imperial exploitation as spiritually corrupt. The fact that British naval dominance relied on American timber — and in turn fueled slavery abroad — added deeper layers of resentment (Nelma, 2025a).

The pine tree, having  long been a symbol of New England, began being flown by colonial merchant ships as an official flag of New England in 1686. Thus, leading up to the Revolutionary War, the pine tree became a symbol of Colonial ire and resistance.  New England’s flag:

Above image by Thespoondragon utilized for First Amendment purposes in accordance with the U.S. Copyright Office’s Fair Use Policy and the Fair Use Doctrine (Thespoondragon 2019).

In 1691, the Massachusetts Charter’s Mast Preservation Clause reserved all suitable white pines measuring 24 inches (61 cm) or more in diameter for Crown use. Royal surveyors marked these trees with the Broad Arrow — three hatchet slashes signaling that the tree was royal property (WeAre Historical Society, 2025a). Colonists were required to obtain a license to harvest unmarked trees, even if they stood on private land.

Resistance grew as the policy expanded. In 1722, Parliament extended timber restrictions to New Hampshire, making it illegal to fell any white pine over 12 inches in diameter without Crown approval (WeAre Historical Society, 2025b). Deputies tasked with enforcement clashed with local settlers who practiced “Swamp Law” — a defiant tradition of harvesting timber according to local needs, ignoring royal edicts.

To many colonists, the Broad Arrow laws represented more than inconvenience. They were emblematic of an imperial system that extracted resources to uphold unjust institutions — namely the slave trade — and suppressed local autonomy. That anger came to a head in Weare, New Hampshire, on April 14, 1772, in what became known as the Pine Tree Riot.

After several mill owners were fined for possessing Broad Arrow–marked timber, a group led by one owner assaulted the sheriff and his deputy. The townsmen administered one lash with a pine switch for each disputed tree, mutilated the officers’ horses by cutting their ears, manes, and tails, and drove them through a taunting crowd.

This act of defiance occurred nearly two years before the Boston Tea Party and three years before Lexington and Concord. Though bloodless, it was symbolically potent — an assertion that the colonists rejected both legal subjugation and the imperial machinery that sustained oppression abroad. As New England’s forests were being harvested to build slave ships, colonists saw the Broad Arrow not only as a mark of royal ownership, but as a scar of complicity in the global slave economy (Schmidt, 2024; Nelma, 2025a).

The pine tree, once simply a regional symbol, became a revolutionary emblem. It adorned merchant ship flags as early as 1686 and featured prominently in early American resistance iconography (Wyatt, 2002; Thespoondragon, 2019). By the time of the Pine Tree Riot, it stood not just for self-reliance—but for a moral stand against imperial exploitation.

§10 Vice-Admiralty Courts and Locke’s “Appeal to Heaven”: The Rallying Cry that sparked the Revolutionary War

While Broad Arrow laws targeted resources, Vice-Admiralty Courts denied colonists the legal mechanisms to contest them. Authorized by the Vice-Admiralty Court Act of July 6, 1768, part of the Townshend Acts, these juryless courts were established in Boston, Philadelphia, and Charleston to enforce customs laws, suppress smuggling, and uphold imperial maritime interests (WeAre Historical Society, 2025a).

Unlike local common law courts, Vice-Admiralty tribunals operated under commercial law — complex, highly centralized, and unfamiliar to most colonists. With no jury and no recourse to community arbitration, colonists viewed these courts as engines of royal oppression, administered by Crown-aligned legal elites (Pollock & Maitland, 1899; Pugh, 1953).

This grievance aligned philosophically with John Locke’s critique of arbitrary power. In his Second Treatise of Government, Locke contended that when legal institutions lose legitimacy, the oppressed retain the natural right to seek justice by higher means:

“And where the Body of the People, or any single Man, is deprived of their Right… there lies an Appeal to Heaven.” (Locke, 1690/Laslett, 1988, p. 403)

Colonists interpreted the erosion of trial rights not as a temporary inconvenience but as a profound breach of the social contract. Locke’s framework argued that legitimate government must preserve life, liberty, and property — and when it ceases to do so, rebellion becomes not only justifiable but morally obligatory (Yao, 2024).

Vice-Admiralty Courts epitomized this breakdown. From the Broad Arrow statutes to the commercial trials, colonists were judged without peers, fined without consent, and stripped of natural rights. In Locke’s words:

“Where there is no judge on Earth, the appeal lies to Heaven.” (Locke, 1690/Laslett, 1988)

The Pine Tree Riot thus becomes more than an outburst — it reflects a Lockean appeal, a transition from passive resistance to active confrontation. The colonists were no longer petitioners. They were practitioners of natural law against institutional despotism.

The Pine Tree Flag

Although no accurate depictions of The Pine Tree flag exist, the earliest known description of the Pine Tree Flag—featuring the Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus) with the motto “An Appeal to Heaven” — comes from Col. Joseph Reed, George Washington’s aide-de-camp and Adjutant-General of the Continental Army. In a letter dated October 20, 1775, Reed wrote to his friend Col. John Glover, “Please to fix some particular color for a flag and a signal, by which our [Continental Navy] vessels may know each other. What do you think of a flag with a white ground, a tree in the middle, and the motto ‘An Appeal to Heaven?’ This is the flag of our floating batteries.’” (Wyatt 2002, Schmidt 2024).