"When the Lord sent me into the world he forbade me to put off my hat to any, high or low: and I was required to 'thee' and 'thou' all men and women, rich or poor, great or small. And as I traveled up and down, I was not to bid people Good-morning, or Good-evening, neither might I bow or scrape with my leg to any one. This made the sects and professions rage. Oh! the rage that was in the priests, magistrates, professors, and people of all sorts: and especially in priests and professors: for though 'thou' to a single person was according to their accidence and grammar rules; and according to the Bible, yet they could not bear to hear it: and because I could not put off my hat to them, it set them all into a rage."
In German, there is one word "you" for both plural and formal use "Sie" and another word "you" for singular and more informal use: "tu."
In English in the 17th century, if I understand correctly, "thou" was like "tu," it was the informal and singular use. The custom, though, was to call aristocrats "You" just as one would call a plural grouping "you."
Fox resisted this, as the above passgae indicates. He called all singulars by the terms "thou" or "thee," reserving "you" for the plural. So he didn't distinguish between aristocrats and peasants in terms of the form of address.
All are God' children, all are worthy of the same form of address.
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I was arrested in connection with this some 12 years ago, at a friend's arraignment for a demonstration where both of us had been arrested. I was rereading my George Fox, quite familiar with that passage--and though I had always had the sense that the 'take off your hat' requirement was wrong (and thus utterly problematic from a Quaker perspective)--I doubt I ever got the others in my Meeting to understand why I had to push this particular witness.
Like you, they found the 'Testimony of Equality' the consideration that made sense to them.
To me--and to Fox, I think--this was only part of it. "Because I _could_ not put off my hat to them..." He 'could' not because it was a condition of his mission to as a preacher whom 'the Lord had sent into the world.'
Courtroom Reality: 'We are in charge here. This is your judge. The bench and the bailiffs and the powers given him by the State are what matters here, and you are to take off your hat in recognition of your position in this context.'
True Reality: 'God is judge, even here.'
Fox could not 'preach the Day of the Lord' to people thoroughly emmeshed in their own days, not from inside their frame of reference. He had to speak from within God's reality, to withhold recognition of the context they would assume he belonged to.
If "the People of the State of California" have fallen into injustice, they must have forgotten their true master, who I recognise as my master. And that is why it must be his truth I honor, not theirs.
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