Mother Makes You King

"Mother said it's my turn to be king!"

"Enter: Fastrada. Pippin's stepmother. Devious, crafty, cunning, untrustworthy, but a warm and wonderful mother. Dedicated to gaining the throne for her darling son, Lewis."

— The Leading Player about Fastrada, Pippin

This is basically when someone could not have otherwise become king without their mother's efforts. It doesn't have to necessarily be a king—it can refer to any situation where your mother makes sure you have power.

It could be that your mother is a political actor in her own right who plans to get you into power, scheming and murdering all other heirs and finally you become king. A woman in such a society can't be head of state, so her son becoming king is the next best thing. In that case, she's likely the Woman Behind the Man, and her son, once he's in power, may be a Puppet King.

For gender reasons, daughter variants are uncommon. What is common, though, is ambitious mothers or fathers parading their beautiful young daughter before a king or prince in hope she'd be picked as a Hot Consort. This is a three-generational plan: marry the daughter into the royal family, then the daughter has a son who will become king.

Merely inheriting your throne via your mother's line doesn't count; your mother has to actively support you in assuming the position. (This usually means scheming.)

While it doesn't actually have to be becoming king, that is the most common case. Historically, a king's father usually had to die before he could become king, but many kings' mothers were still alive and well during their reigns, often titled "Queen Mother." In the Ottoman Empire, sultans tended to have royal harems with many concubines—but they only had one mother (who was usually the favored concubine of their predecessor). She was effectively their queen, the second most powerful person in the empire after the sultan himself, and bore the title "Valide Sultan" — literally "Mother Sultan".

The mothers in question tend to be villainous, often overlapping with Evil Matriarch and God Save Us from the Queen!. This is doubly true if the son in question is secretly illegitimate, or otherwise not the biological son of the late king, making him not the "rightful heir". If her son has half-brothers in line to the throne before him, she will certainly be a Wicked Stepmother to those stepsons.

Subtrope to Vicariously Ambitious. The mom in question is (whether heroic, villainous or any combination thereof) most likely an Almighty Mom. If she was married to a king, she may have been a Lady Macbeth as well. Compare Villainous Mother-Son Duo.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• In Fushigi Yuugi, Hotohori's mother pulled some strings to get him onto the throne. Conveniently, the real crown prince, Tendou, had been sent away to live as a commoner, because someone made an attempt on his life.
• In Kaiba, Warp's mother poisoned him, giving him just enough poison to make him indisposed during the war of succession, in which all his brothers died.
• Red River (1995): Queen Nakia's goal is to invoke the trope with her son Juda no matter what, and is trying to kill her stepsons.

Audio Plays

• Big Finish Doctor Who, "Paper Cuts": What the Queen Mother is trying to do for her son. Though she didn't technically kill the Emperor, she has forced him into suspended animation in an orbiting tomb.

Fan Works

• In Babylon (Beautiful Fiction), the Babylonian boy king, Kaleo, the Gate's first sacrifice was the son of the Big Bad Crown Princess Carmine.

Film - Animated

• Barbie as the Island Princess: Queen Ariana is deadset on overthrowing King Peter in revenge for a slight from years ago, and how she plans to go about this is by having her daughter Luciana marry Peter's son Antonio, then poisoning the entire royal family during the wedding so that Luciana will become queen by default and Ariana can act as Regent for Life.
• The Lion King II: Simba's Pride: Zira will do anything to make her son Kovu king by training him as a Tyke-Bomb to kill Simba. What the Pridelands would look like after that happens is not entirely clear, as Zira is more concerned with avenging her lover Scar's death than power in of itself.
• In Shrek 2 Fairy Godmother tries to put her son Prince Charming on the throne by marrying Fiona, who is heiress to the throne of Far-Far-Away; the original plan was for him to have saved Fiona from the dragon's tower but he got there after Shrek had already saved and married her. So Fairy Godmother tries to get rid of Shrek in other ways, setting up the whole plot of the movie.

Film - Live Action

• Stardust: After the Game Between Heirs and the Witches have killed all the sons of the King of Stormhold and due to the fact the throne of Stormhold can't pass to a Woman, Tristan, as son of Princess Una and the one who finds the ruby, becomes King.

Literature

• Chronicles of the Kencyrath:
  • Kenan, Lord Randir, owes his position entirely to his mother Rawneth's efforts, including driving the rightful heir into exile. Bonus points because Kenan's secretly illegitimate. Rawneth's strongly implied to be the power behind the throne, as it's said that mother and son speak with a single voice, and the one action Kenan takes without his mother's input is a failure.
  • Timmon's mother Distan is strongly implied to be this. Lord Ardeth—Distan's father—is very old and will die in the foreseeable future, and she wants her son to be the next Lord Ardeth.
    Adiraina: To my mind, the boy is a bit frivolous and his mother over-ambitious;
  • In Kothifir, Princess Amantine is this to her son Ton. With his support, he makes an attempt to usurp the throne, though he fails.
    Ton: Mother…
    Amantine: Face the truth, boy. Where would you be without me? Even if the white should truly come to you, you need my guidance
• In The Crown Jewels by Walter Jon Williams, we learn that this is how the current Khosali Emperor, Nnis CVI, got his crown. The eldest does not automatically inherit—the current Emperor chooses his heir from the children of his harem. Nnis, though a son of the emperor, had absolutely no interest in his father's throne. His goal in life was to publish scholarly papers on insect genitalia. Unfortunately for him, while he was off on a remote planet studying crawling things, the designated heir died, and Nnis' mother managed to get Nnis chosen as the new heir. Nnis went rushing back to try to start a counter conspiracy aimed at getting himself removed, but before he arrived at the capital, the Emperor died, and he was stuck.
• Godspeaker Trilogy: The first book is about a nameless brat who rises to Mother of the Heir via slavery and soldiery with divine guidance. Her ambition is to use her son as a "Hammer" to take over the world.
• How to Train Your Dragon: Excellinor the Witch, mother of Alvin the Treacherous, is able to make her son King of the Wilderwest through her scheming.
• I, Claudius claims Livia Drusilla was this to Tiberius.
• Kushiel's Legacy: Lyonette de Trevalion, known as "the Lioness of Azzalle," is the sister of the current king, a "Princess of the Blood." She plots with her son Baudoin to get him on the throne. It becomes a Defied Trope when both mother and son get caught, put on trial, and executed for treason.
• Red Queen:
  • At the end of the first book, Queen Elara Merandus succeeds in putting her son, Maven, to the throne of Norta, having Compelled her stepson and the heir apparent, Tiberias VII "Cal", to kill his father, Tiberias VI.
  • The third book features a grandmother example with Anabel Lerolan, wife of the late Tiberias V, who arranges for Cal to be able to reclaim the Nortan throne after Maven is banished from the court.
• The Riftwar Cycle has a protagonist example: At the end of Mistress of the Empire, Mara of the Acoma puts her son Justin on the throne by marrying him to the daughter of the late Emperor, making him the next Emperor.
• A Song of Ice and Fire loves this trope.
  • Queen Cersei Lannister puts her secretly illegitimate son Joffrey in line for the Iron Throne by passing him off as King Robert's legitimate son. She then gets him on the throne by killing Robert and his bastards (whose physical appearance would prove that Joffrey wasn't Robert's) and having a person who discovered her secret imprisoned on charges of treason. Because Joffrey is young, Cersei—in varying degrees—rules in his name, thought he's a loose cannon and sometimes goes off on his own. This is a 3-generation version, since Cersei herself became queen thanks to her father Tywin's scheming.
  • Visenya Targaryen—one of Aegon the Conqueror's sister-wives—is suspected of this, with her stepson/nephew King Aenys I dying from an illness while under her care. Her son Maegor the Cruel then became king and she became his strongest supporter. Then deconstructed, as after her death Maegor's reign begins to fall apart and he is overthrown by one of Aenys' sons.
  • Queen Alicent Hightower was the mother of eldest prince Aegon II. Her husband, Viserys I, had declared his daughter Rhaenyra—the only surviving child of his first marriage—his heir. Alicent repeatedly asked him to choose Aegon instead, without success. Upon Viserys' death, Alicent moved to secure power and crown her son as Aegon II before Rhaenyra could return to the capital, leading to a civil war known as "the Dance of the Dragons". This is implied to be a 3-generation version: Alicent's father Otto was a powerful courtier when she married the king, and the idea that he didn't have an hand in that seems unlikely.
  • During the chaos that engulfed King's Landing during the Dance of the Dragons civil war, a woman named Essie proclaimed her 4-year-old son Gaemon king, claiming he was the bastard of the prior King Aegon II. After the city was reclaimed, she was hanged.
• Queen Prim Marlon of Marlon in the Story of Evil novels is this to a T. Obsessed with the idea of her son Kyle (originally the fifth-in-line for the throne) becoming king and creating an empire to rival her best friend-turned-rival's kingdom of Lucifenia, after her husband's death, she systematically poisoned all but one of her stepchildren and any dignitary who might oppose her, drove the remaining stepchild's mother to renounce his claim to the throne, and drove another branch of the royal family out of the country so Kyle could be crowned. When Kyle showed interest in becoming an artist instead, she bribed art critics and famous artists to demoralize and criticize his work so he would give up on his dream. It all comes back to bite her eventually, though.
• In the Belisarius Series, Photius is made Emperor at the age of eight by both his mothers - his natural mother Antonina and his adoptive mother Empress Theodora - after Emperor Justinian is blinded and thus disqualified from the holding the throne.
• In the ''The Goblin Emperor", it is commented Sheveän Drazharan could have been a great general if she had been a man; unfortunately, the only acceptable occupations for a woman of her rank are marrying well, having children, and supporting her son's position. So she orchestrates an attempted coup against her brother-in-law on her son's behalf. He is not pleased when he finds out.

Live-Action TV

• Criminal Minds: The episode "Rock Creek Park" features an up-and-coming congressman whose wife is kidnapped. Through the course of the investigation, the team realizes that the man's mother had been molding him since his childhood and had basically discarded his older brother when a childhood injury disfigured him, making a successful career in politics unlikely. She set up her daughter-in-law's kidnapping and planned murder as a way to get rid of what she considered an unworthy suitor and to earn him sympathy from voters to further his career. In the end, the congressman tells his mother that what she did was unforgivable, but since it worked, he continues allowing her to advise him. The team genuinely believes he's on track to become President one day.
• Dark Matter (2015): Empress Ishida is scheming to make her son Hiro the emperor. This is not good news for her stepson Ryo, who stands between Hiro and the throne.
• Game of Thrones: Like in the books (see "Literature"), Cersei Lannister is the one who puts Joffrey Baratheon in line for the throne by killing Robert and imprisoning Ned Stark. Though it is actually Joffrey who kills all of Robert's bastard children, out of the fear that one of them will try to claim the throne. Eventually, after all her children have died, Cersei crowns herself Queen Regnant of Westeros.
  Tywin: Robert Baratheon is dead. Joffrey rules in King's Landing.
  Tyrion: You mean my sister rules.
  Tywin: [nods]
• House of the Dragon: A 3-generation plan. Otto Hightower is Hand of the King (think the king's Number Two). It's the highest position someone who's not part of the royal family can achieve, so the only way Otto can continue climbing the social ladder is via his offspring. He arranges for the widowed King Viserys to marry his daughter Alicent, making her queen consort. Alicent and Viserys have several children, of which the eldest is Aegon. However, Viserys decides to go against tradition and make his only surviving child from his first marriage—his daughter Rhaenyra—heir instead. This is an unpopular move in an Heir Club for Men world, and plenty of people think Aegon might end up inheriting regardless. Otto tries to invoke this trope in Alicent by arguing that Rhaenyra will put Alicent's children to the sword to solidify her unpopular claim. Alicent initially isn't so keen on it, as she's friends with Rhaenyra. Over the years, though, Alicent begins to resent Rhaenyra since, as heir, she enjoys enormous privileges that Alicent is denied. By the time Viserys actually dies and the matter of succession becomes relevant, Alicent is ready to embrace this trope and advance her son's claim with The Coup. A civil war begins, with Aegon as a claimant and mom Alicent and grandpa Otto as his biggest supporters. They want Aegon to be a Puppet King while the two of them actually run things.
• I, Claudius: Livia will have her own family killed or banished if it means her son Tiberius will become emperor. Please note that Tiberius doesn't even want to be emperor. (Bonus points because Tiberius is only a stepson to Augustus—Livia's husband and the previous emperor—though Roman inheritance doesn't care.)
• Into the Badlands: Lydia is actively working to ensure her son succeeds her husband Quinn as baron, even though Quinn himself doesn't think Ryder is tough or smart enough. But after one mistake too many, Lydia comes to agree with her husband and tells Ryder that he's not suited to becoming a Baron.
• Magnificent Century is set in the royal court of the Ottoman Empire, so it's full of this. An unusual heroic example: protagonist Hürrem whose scheming makes one of her sons the next sultan… although to be fair, antagonist Mahidevran is doing the exact same thing. Hürrem's motivation is less about power and more to do with the fact that if Mahidevran's son wins the throne, he has the right to strangle his half brothers to avoid a civil war. (Mustafa probably wouldn't have, but Mahidevran would.) Hürrem wins... unfortunately the son that ends up winning is the Inadequate Inheritor, foreshadowing the decline of the Ottoman Empire.
• Once Upon a Time: An example of Mother Makes You Queen. Cora manipulates events so that Regina saves the recently widowed King's young daughter and he takes Regina as a wife. It is also revealed she killed the previous Queen in the first place.
• Only Murders in the Building: Although not literally royalty, Cliff is a nepotism baby who has clearly been given his whole career in producing because of his domineering, incestuous, and extremely successful mother, Donna, who's also a producer. She keeps denying that she's involved in the production of ''Death Rattle'' (Cliff's first "solo" show) while simultaneously riding roughshod over the production.
• In the Klingon house of Duras in Star Trek: The Next Generation, aunts Lursa and B'Etor scheme to get their nephew Toral on the council.
• Reign:
  • Catherine loves being the mother of the king. Deconstructed over time with her eldest son Francis, and deconstructed even harder with her second son Charles.
  • Lord Darnley's mother's Lady Lennox is determined to make her son king by marrying him to a queen. She's quite proud of herself for this, but when she and Catherine meet, Catherine quickly declares herself the queen of this trope, pointing out that Darnley is only king consort, while her son is a true king.
• Sons of Anarchy: Gemma is shown to very much be pulling the strings on the men in her life. Women are not allowed to be members of the motorcycle club but Gemma always manages to be attached to the President of the club. Her first husband, JT, was a founding member. When he no longer wanted to live the outlaw life, it is implied that Gemma conspired with JT's best friend Clay Morrow, to kill JT so Clay could become President. Clay and Gemma married shortly after JT's death, making Gemma once again, the revered wife of the club president. Once Clay got older and struggled with arthritis which made it hard to ride his motorcycle, a requirement to be an active club member, Gemma began manipulating her son, Jax to take Clay's place. Many considered Jax the rightful heir to the club Presidency, even referring to him as the crown prince, but Jax was only 15 at the time of JT's death, too young to be an active member of the club much less the president. With Gemma's encouragement, Jax challenged Clay for presidency and won, making Gemma now the revered mother of the club's president.

Religion & Mythology

• Egyptian Mythology: After her husband Osiris was murdered by his brother Seth who became Pharaoh, Isis made sure her son Horus could claim the rule from his Evil Uncle.
• Celtic Mythology: When Fergus mac Roich married Ness, she gave him one condition: allow her 7-year-old son Conchobor to serve as a Puppet King for a year so that his future children could boast a royal lineage. Fergus agreed to her terms, and Ness immediately set about getting Conchobor to be a Universally Beloved Leader (as much by bribery as by good rulership) so that, when the time came for Fergus to reclaim his kingship, the people of Ulster told him to stuff it.
• The Bible:
  • In the Book of Genesis, Rebecca tricks Isaac into giving Jacob the greater blessing that he intended to give Esau. An unusual example, since Rebecca is Esau's mother too. She just favors Jacob.
  • As King David is near death, his son Adonijah declares himself king, even though it had been prophesized that another son, Solomon, would rule. Solomon's mother, Bathsheba, works with the prophet Nathan to reveal Adonijah's actions to David and get Solomon on the throne.
• Ramayana has this as a partly Defied and partly Deconstructed Trope. King Dasarath has four sons by his three wives. The king decides to retire, and his oldest son, Rama, is about to be crowned. On the day before the coronation, the king's favorite wife Kaikeyi (mother of the second-born Bharat) decides to call in an old You Owe Me favor: she asks for Rama to be exiled and for Bharat to be crowned instead. This Sadistic Choice forces the king to either exile his universally beloved, virtuous first-born or shame his family's reputation for adhering to their word and dishonor his ancestors. The King complies with her request, but promptly dies of a broken heart (helped along by a previous curse incurred in his youth). Bharat as out of town during this, but once he returns to find his father dead and his brother exiled, he's absolutely absolutely horrified. He disowns his mother on the spot, and — after much angst about being the son of such a wicked mother — waltzes off to find and crown his brother. Since their father is dead and can't revoke his oath, Rama feels obliged to serve his 14 years of exile, but once he returns after many heroic deeds, Bharat is all too happy to hand over the crown.

Theatre

• Pippin: King Charlemagne has two sons: Pippin (his eldest son by his late wife) and Lewis (his younger son by his current wife Fastrada). Fastrada is scheming to get her son on the throne.
  Lewis: Mama... if Pippin kills Father...
  Fastrada: You'll be next in line for the throne, darling.
  Lewis: But if Father discovers Pippin's plot and executes him...
  Fastrada: You'll be next in line for the throne, darling.

Video Games

• Queen Louveria from Final Fantasy Tactics confines herself to Offstage Villainy but her actions have ripple effects throughout the plot. If you read the character profiles over the course of the game, she eventually murders her husband and exiles/executes her way through most of his retainers just so her (possibly illegitimate) son has a better position in the coming civil war. She's apprehended and tossed in the dungeon of an impregnable fortress and the attempt to rescue her by her brother Duke Larg ignites the "War of the Lions".
• The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt: Birna Bran, the widow of King Bran of Skellige, repeatedly insists her son Svanrige is the rightful king, even though the monarchy is not hereditary in Skellige; instead the monarch being chosen by the clan chiefs, all of whom despise Birna and think her determination to see Svanrige crowned king is just so she won't have to give up her position and power now her husband is dead. She's prepared to go as far as murdering any and all other claimants to make her son king; unfortunately for Birna, if her plan to crown Svanrige succeeds, her son demonstrates (by way of burying an axe in the skull of a Nilfgaardian ambassador she was negotiating with) that he has no intention whatsoever of being her Puppet King.
• An in-universe historical figure in the The Elder Scrolls games is Potema, the Wolf Queen of Solitude, who plotted and schemed to try and get her son, Uriel III, on the Imperial throne. Potema briefly achieved this goal after starting a civil war and capturing and executing Empress Kintyra, her niece, which allowed Uriel to succeed her. Unfortunately for Potema, Uriel was soon burned alive by an angry mob, causing her to undergo Sanity Slippage and lose what few redeeming qualities she may have had.

Visual Novels

• Long Live the Queen: Next in line for the Novan throne after Crown Princess Elodie is Laurent, her maternal uncle. After that is her cousin Charlotte, Laurent's daughter. Lucille, Charlotte's mother, orchestrates multiple assassination attempts against Elodie over the course of the game with the aim of getting Charlotte on the throne, in order to rule vicariously through her. Of course, with the right information and actions, there are means to nip this in the bud.

Webcomics

• In Megan Kearney's Beauty and the Beast we learn from flashbacks that the Beast's mother attempted this trope back when he was a young man named Argus. She was the king's former mistress, Argus their illegitimate son, and she spent years secretly poisoning the queen to make her barren so the king would be forced to name Argus as his heir. When royal couple finally had a legitimate son, ruining her plans, she attacked her own son in rage, driving him to attempt suicide next to a magic fountain, leading to his transformation.

Western Animation

• In Justice League (and Unlimited), this is the aim of Morgaine Le Fey, for her son Mordred (to whom she has granted immortality and eternal youth with her magic) to assume the throne of Camelot. She had pursued this goal for centuries, using and discarding many men (including Jason Blood) with promises of power and love to further her schemes. Unfortunately, circumstances result in Mordred's eternal youth enchantment being broken, rendering him an undying husk of a man. After this, Morgaine opts to abandon her quest in order to care for him.

Real Life

• This happened with Cyrus the Great of Persia, at least according to Herodotus' The Histories. His grandfather Astyages, the King of the Medes, married his daughter Mandane to Cambyses the Persian as he thought Cambyses was unlikely to rebel. Later Cyrus is able to overthrow his grandfather, starting of the Achaemenid Empire.
• Similarly happened with Xerxes. His father Darius became king and married Atossa, daughter of Cyrus. There was a dispute whether Darius' oldest son from his first wife or his oldest son from Atossa should be king. Finally, Demaratus the exiled Spartan king, said Xerxes should be king as he was born when his father was king, and he was descended from Cyrus. However, this trope had potential to further happen according to Herodotus, who states he believes that even without Demaratus, Xerxes would have become king due to Atossa's influence.
• Alexander the Great's mom Olympias is thought to have been this for him. After King Philip's death, she had his children by another wife, Cleopatra of Macedon, executed while Cleopatra committed suicide.
• The Julio-Claudian dynasty of Roman emperors were a Big, Screwed-Up Family—if only because the chaos of their tenure (at least after Augustus) often involved this (allegedly).
  • Livia Drusilla—third wife of the emperor Augustus—was accused by various historians of murdering most of Augustus' potential heirs so Tiberius, her oldest son from her first marriage, could succeed Augustus. This was a case of Historical Villain Upgrade.
  • Agrippina the Younger^note Livia's great-granddaughter is thought to have poisoned her third husband Claudius so Nero (her son from her first marriage) could become Emperor and she could rule through him. Nero deconstructed the trope hard—within five years Nero was a Self-Made Orphan.
  • Curiously enough, the rise of the Julio-Claudians under Augustus would not have been consolidated had the former Gaius Octavian not been contending with another case of this: Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, who had not only swayed his rival Mark Antony to her side, but also claims the son she has installed as Pharaoh—Caesarion—was a legal and biological son of Julius Caesar. By extension, the boy has greater claim to everything the late dictator owns than Octavian. Octavian, of course, would not let that stand.
• Possibly Wak Chanil Ajaw (a.k.a. "Lady Six Sky") of the Mayan city of Naranjo. The surviving stelae attribute several military victories and conquests to her son Kʼakʼ Tiliw Chan Chaak ("Smoking Squirrel") in a time when he would be as young as five years old. There are also representations of Wak Chanil stepping on a defeated foe as is typical of victorious Mayan kings, but extremely rare imagery for a woman.
• The Pope: The tenth-century Roman noblewoman Marozia engineered the enthronement of her son^note either by Pope Sergius III or her husband Duke Alberic I of Spoleto as Pope John XI. It is not confirmed that she was the one who had her mother's alleged lover Pope John X offed to place three of her candidates ending with her kid on the throne of Saint Peter but the Roman Church of the era had that sort of reputation.
• Moorish Spain: Hisham II, the last long-lived Caliph of Cordoba, was installed in the throne when he was 11 (in breach of the Caliphate's succession rules) and 'reigned' in reclusion without ever showing interest in government (likely because of autism or a similar mental disorder). The mastermind was his mother, a Basque slave named Subh (born Aurora), who conspired with the Vizier al-Mushafi, General Ghalib, and the courtier Almanzor to assassinate al-Mughira, the brother of the late Caliph al-Hakam II, before he made a move for the Caliphate. Almanzor subsequently allied with Subh (possibly becoming her lover) and got rid of al-Mushafi, Ghalib, and eventually Subh herself, henceforth ruling as dictator while keeping Hisham as the claimed Caliph.
• Berenguela of Castile unexpectedly became Queen in 1217 when her brother, 13-year-old Henry I, was struck by a falling tile and killed while he was playing with other children. After a reign of only one month, she abdicated for her son Ferdinand III and became his royal counselor. In 1230, she convinced her step-daughters Dulce and Sancha to renounce their rights to the Kingdom of León, ensuring that Ferdinand inherited and unified Castile and León for good.
• Töregene Khatun was the Empress Regent of the Mongol Empire following the death of her husband Ogedei Khan, Genghis Khan's second son and heir, and pulled strings behind the scenes for years to get her son Güyük elected as Great Khan despite the attempts to delay the election by her nephew Batu. Unfortunately, once she succeeded Güyük almost immediately turned on her, and among other things executed one of her closest advisers (and possible lover) a woman named Fatima, and Töregene herself died not long after under unclear circumstances.
• The Ottoman Empire was a mess of this because (a) the throne didn't simply pass from father to eldest son—any son had a shot, (b) a sultan's mother was effectively his queen, and the most powerful woman in the empire, and (c) with a Royal Harem, sultans usually had sons with several different mothers, all of whom would be scheming against each other. Although the oldest ones usually won out over their younger brothers because, logically, they had more experience and time to build a power base in time for the next Succession Crisis.
• English history:
  • Matilda and Henry the Second: Matilda was the only legitimate surviving child of Henry I of The House of Normandy. Her father had made her his heir, but his nephew Stephen — with the help of the barons — made himself king, leading to a period of civil war in England. Matilda nearly became queen, but it seemed the barons wouldn't accept a woman ruler. Finally Matilda agreed with Stephen that her son Henry would be his heir, which happened when Stephen died next year. Henry II became the first King of The House of Plantagenet.
  • Isabella of France and Edward III: Isabella, known as the She-Wolf of France, lived for years as a pious and dutiful queen consort to Edward II of England; she finally got fed up with his constant promotion of his favorites and his general incompetence, including callously abandoning her while she was pregnant. She left the country, gathered her own troops and her own lover, Roger Mortimer, and invaded England. She quickly had her opponents murdered—one had his head brought to her—and then brutally executed her husband's favorite Hugh Despenser. She then deposed her husband and placed her son, Edward III, on the throne and acted as regent. She was later overthrown by her own son, who had Mortimer executed and forced her to retire from power, though, being queen mother, she remained rather wealthy. Incidentally, she is the casus belli for The Hundred Years War since her son declared himself the rightful ruler of France after King Philippe VI of France confiscated his lands, and Edward cited his matrilineal descent boasting he was closer related to the original monarch than Philippe was.
  • Lady Margaret Beaufort and Henry VII: As a great-granddaughter of King Edward III through her father, Beaufort passed a weak claim to the throne on to her son that likely never would have amounted to anything... until the Wars of the Roses broke out. Edmund Tudor, her husband, was killed while she was pregnant with her son, leaving their position suddenly uncertain, which only got worse in 1461, when her father-in-law was killed and her and brother-in-law was forced to flee due to the war. Edward IV seized the lands belonging to Henry and gave them to his own brother, the Duke of Clarence, sending Henry to become the ward of Sir William Herbert. In 1469, after a failed rebellion against Edward IV, Beaufort managed to convince Jasper Tudor, Henry's paternal uncle, to take him with him into exile for his safety. In 1472, Beaufort married Thomas Stanley, Lord High Constable and King of Mann, in a marriage of convenience to get back to court through his status, becoming successful enough in her lobbying to be godmother to one of Edward IV's daughters. Following Edward IV's death in April 1483 and the seizure of the throne in June by Richard III, Beaufort became deeply involved in Buckingham's Rebellion in October that year, as the rebellion tried to dethrone Richard in favor of Henry. The rebellion failed, but it did cause a number of the people involved with Richard's cause to switch sides. Despite being on house arrest and having her lands seized by Richard, Beaufort still exchanged letters with her son and several others, managing to betroth Henry to Elizabeth of York, the late king Edward IV's daughter, further leeching support from Richard III, and raise enough support for Henry to press his claim. Beaufort's husband Stanley, who had fought on Richard's side during the Buckingham rebellion, did not respond to Richard's call to arms when summoned to fight at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, despite his son being held hostage. As such, the battle was won by Henry's side, killing Richard III in the process, and Stanley was the one to place the crown on Henry's head. For this, Beaufort was rewarded with the right to own property and make contracts in her own name by her very grateful son, had her seized lands returned to her, and enjoyed a considerable amount of power and respect at court, even being involved in the raising and coronation of her grandson, Henry VIII, before her death.

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Alternative title(s): Mother Makes You Queen