How to dethrone a Queen?

[Anberith]

A queen in my story has to be dethroned. She has only had the position for a short time after her grandfather was murdered. The antagonist wants her out of the seat of power so he can have a man of his own choosing take it instead through the council ( he is manipulating them for his gain).

I am lacking enough reason for her to be dethroned that can be directly linked to her inability to be a good ruler, as well as problems that she couldn't have solved even if she new about them.

 

[Xaysai]

Obviously the antagonist stages a series of attacks, protests, food shortages, military unrest, sabotages, etc., and links them to the queen. This causes unrest and a subsequent vote of non-confidence and she is removed from power.

Maybe the antag poisons the king of an allied/friendly/neighboring kingdom and frames the queen. Perhaps this happens during some kind of tense negotiations and endangers them further.

Even better, if you can have her make some kind of decree which is supposed to help people, but backfires, she could be more of a tragic character. Maybe the antag is an adviser who willfully feeds her bad information which she bases her decision on?

Maybe the antag frames her or implicates her in the grandfathers murder? As if she were trying to seize power?

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Dethroning a monarch legally has to be done according to the laws of the land. Of course the simplest solution would be some sort of revolution etc, but I'm gathering that you don't want that.

So make up some laws that the queen must abide by and then have her break them, or seem to break to them. Taking a commoner for a lover if she'd not married might be one. Renouncing her faith if faith is central to the position. If she needs the support of the council etc to rule, than a vote of no confidence might work. Conviction for a crime whether she did it or not might be an out. A suggestion of an impure blood line - as in she was never the legitimate heir after all.

It's up to you.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Anberith]

Thanks for the ideas they have certainly gotten the ball running. Now I am wondering when the king was killed there was a security breach for the antagonist was able to get into the palace without raising any alarms ( he was a friend of the king some fifty years ago) now they have to tighten up the security but how do you protect against something that you consider a friend.

I am playing with the idea of more murders being committed inside the palace to counter their efforts to tighten up the security but I don't want this to become a detective novel

I should mention that the antagonist wants something that the king has that is hidden in the palace.

The council is in no way directly connected with antagonist but he has a few chosen members who indirectly influence them. They could also be the ones that make it more difficult for the queen.

I am also thinking, what happens to the queen once they have dethroned her. Would they willingly let her go, banish her form the kingdom or would they want to imprison her.

 

[Jabrosky]

What a coincidence, I have a Queen (or more precisely a female Pharaoh) dethroned in my own story too! What happens is that the antagonist (her half-brother and the country's most prominent religious figure) lures her into a trap where his minions (originally barbarian warriors, now witches) await to attack.

Do you have a motivation for the antagonist to dethrone your Queen? In my story, the antagonist's motives combine political disagreements with old-fashioned sibling rivalry.

 

[Alexandra]

How to dethrone a queen?... a knife in the back. Most, if not all, monarchies lack the legal means in place to remove their monarchs (it contravenes what a monarchy is), they can't be voted out of office; the population must do it through revolution, which is treason unless they win.

Your antagonist gets rid of the queen by assassination (see above), makes it look like a rival kingdom was behind the murder thereby engaging in an act of war so he puts forward his choice of ruler as the logical choice to lead the kingdom in these trying times. Done.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

What happens to queeny? Whatever they decide. My thought is that they went through some sort of legal process to dethrone her, they likely wouldn't kill her. (Unless she's been dethroned because she has committed or been accused of committing, some horrendous crime.) She might be exiled, held in a dungeon / tower, or simply allowed to return to her home. But as Alexandra says, the most likely way to get rid of a monarch is by revolution, usurp (tion?) or assassination, in which case she'd be killed. Who wants an old queen around potentiall making trouble and vieing for the throne again?

Cheers, Greg.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Penpilot]

How to dethrone someone? Knock on the bathroom door until they get really uncomfortable and get of the pot... sorry... I'll stop now.

But seriously, as mentioned above, it all depends on the laws the of the land you set up. It can be anything. You can have the standard military coup. Political treachery and back stabbing. Or you can have stuff like. The queen must marry before she's 18 or the throne is forfeit to the next in line. Or she commits some ancient faux pas that disqualifies her from being queen.

What are the needs of your story? Like I said, it can be anything so long as you set up the laws of the land to allow what you want to happen. Setting up the laws of the land and how they work in this instance can say a lot about the society this story inhabits.

 

[Shockley]

Generally a monarch is sovereign - which means nobody has any legal authority over said monarch. We have a few monarchies today where a legislative body has sovereign authority (which is the de facto case in the UK), but that is definitely a modern exception to the historical definition.

If you want to remove a monarch, the most efficient way is through war or death. Everything else usually undermines the power of the monarch.

 

[ThinkerX]

Might be one loophole that would work with a female ruler:

Assuming that this society is patriarchal, the only way she could sit the throne in the first place would be if none of the male heirs were of age. She would, in effect be 'Queen Regent'. Should the male heir die or become of age, she'd have to step down. Also, because she would be more standin than monarch, it might be possible to level serious charges against her. George RR Martin puts Cersei in this postion in Game of Thrones.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Assuming this is a fantasy story and not historical fantasy, grounded in our real world, you may do whatever you please as long as it is plausible to your reader. The more unusual the event, the more you will need to include so your reader has enough understanding of the particulars in your Queen's society.

In true fantasy, there are no limits. As long as its plausible, it doesn't have to be believable in terms of our understanding of the realities we all live in every day. You could, for instance, create a world where fornication outside of marriage is some form of cardinal sin in which your matriarch is caught red-handed. Perhaps the penalty is death by stoning. Perhaps she is blackmailed as a result.

Your possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

 

[wordwalker]

Your possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

And your ability to support it. If the plot revolves around lust and sexism, that should mean that's what you're willing to spend a lot of the time writing about; chapters of dueling pedigrees (or pedigreed duelists) followed by suddenly invoking a fornication law you barely mentioned can come off as cheap. But once you know your strengths and passions, you simply play to them.

 

[Penpilot]

George RR Martin puts Cersei in this postion in Game of Thrones.

Ummm.... Spoiler warning?

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Just to add to what others have said. Yes traditionally most monarchs were beyond the law, their rule was absolute. Modern monarchies bear little resemblance to them. So in that sense a legal challenge would not have worked. However no monarch in history has ever been able to either obtain the throne or retain it without supporters, and probably the largest part of the job was making sure that those who backed them were kept happy, and those who opposed them were left in an invidious position, pay lip service to the ruler or lose pretty much anything, up to and including their heads. This is actually something that goes back at least to Roman times where Ceasar found himself at odds with the senate, especially when he declared himself a god.

So as to your queen, this would be the crux of her rule, keeping the important people happy. Not the peasants - they're nothing but people to extort taxes from. Now if she does something stupid like say takes a lover from an unworthy family, if the nobles / the court are happy, it wouldn't matter. Chances are that no one would even mention it, and if someone foolishly did, they might well find themselves in a fungeon. If they weren't happy, if for example say she wanted to cut their revenues from taxes or do land reform thus undermining their wealth / power, then taking an unsuitable lover would be the perfect excuse for them to act under the guise of legality.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Gurkhal]

One idea is that perhaps the guy wanting to dethrone the queen gives her false advice that leads her to make some mistakens in following up her grandfather's assassination, and thus alienate some people that she should've kept close. The manipulator can then step in as a savior against the mad/tyrannical/incompetent queen and dethrone her with support from some others.

 

[Anberith]

The Queen happens to be the main character in the story so unfortunately I can't kill her and revolution will take the story in a different direction ( though I will keep it in mind). What my problem seems to be is my lack of knowledge when it comes to monarchy.

I chose to dethrone her because the antagonist needs to gain excess to the palace and she needs to be able to travel extensively. At the time it looked as I was killing two birds with one stone, but now I am thinking it might not be the right chose.

How liberal can I be with her travels with her still being the Queen. Would it not seem unusual that she has just taken the thrown and then she is never there.

 

[Shockley]

Most monarchs have a number of homes throughout their states, and nobles tended to be happy to host monarchs because it meant an influx of wealth, influential individuals, and feasting to their own homes. That's the case in western Europe at least.

So traveling would be expected for good governance, basically.

 

[Saigonnus]

The thread brings to mind an old gaming session I played in. Basically part of the plot was taking control of a city; which happened to be the capitol of the kingdom. We decided that instead of simply assassinating the rulers (which was within our abilities) we would murder instead the ministers and royal advisors one by one, driving fear into the ruling class. They got more and more paranoid and protective of themselves. Eventually they left the palace to their rulers, returning to their own homes, making it easier for the characters to infiltrate. With the kidnapping of the eldest son and daughter (orchestrated by the characters) we basically converted the queen and king into puppets, doing our bidding for fear we would eliminate their children.

Think about wormtongue in the Lord of the Rings, who gets close and negatively influences the king of Rohan. Of course he was but an intermediary for the magic of Saruman was really the catalyst for the control over Rohan. Controlling a monarch when murder causes too many problems is another way to go.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

Another angle to consider is what happens to the Amrylin Seat in The Wheel of Time books. In short she is taken from power to scullery maid. This could also be a character changing experience if you take the ruler from on high and force them to be the lowest of the low.

 

[Graylorne]

The Queen happens to be the main character in the story so unfortunately I can't kill her and revolution will take the story in a different direction ( though I will keep it in mind). What my problem seems to be is my lack of knowledge when it comes to monarchy.

I chose to dethrone her because the antagonist needs to gain excess to the palace and she needs to be able to travel extensively. At the time it looked as I was killing two birds with one stone, but now I am thinking it might not be the right chose.

How liberal can I be with her travels with her still being the Queen. Would it not seem unusual that she has just taken the thrown and then she is never there.

Do you know Robert Silverberg's Majipoor Chronicles? Here, the ruler goes on an extensive tour, visiting all the major cities to show his face. Could your Queen do the same, combining it if necessary with her own business?