In the movie Braveheart, right before his wife has her throat slit in the beginning of the movie, the man who does it says." an assault on one of the king’s soldiers is the same as an assault on the king himself?" Now I know most of Braveheart is untrue but was this really the case in England and Scotland at that time?
MZ
I would think that an assault on one of the king’s soldiers would be considered a breach of the king’s peace.
The king’s powers weren’t omnipotent in England - in some ways, the Anglo-Saxon kingship (which the Normans took over) can be analysed in federal terms. The king’s powers only extended to certain matters which affected the kingdom as a whole, and the king’s peace was one such concept. I believe it only originally applied to things like the immediate surroundings of the king’s and royal palaces, but gradually got extended to include the main highways, boroughs with royal charters, and so on. An assault on a royal soldier would likely be a breach of the king’s peace.
I suppose there might also be some possibility of it being seen as a variant of lèse-majesté (a Norman/French concept), but I’m not familiar enough to say.