History Main / MotherMakesYouKing

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Like in the books (see "Literature"), Cersei is the one who puts Joffrey in line for the throne by [[spoiler:killing Robert and imprisoning Ned Stark]]. Though it is actually Joffrey who [[spoiler:kills all of Robert's bastard children]], out of the fear that one of them will try to claim the throne. Eventually, after [[spoiler:all her children have died]], Cersei [[spoiler:crowns herself Queen Regnant of Westeros.]]

* ''{{Literature/Ramayana}}'' has this as a partly {{Defied|Trope}} and partly DeconstruedTrope. 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 [[WickedStepmother Kaikeyi]] (mother of the second-born Bharat) decides to call in an old YouOweMe favor: she asks for Rama to be exiled and for Bharat to be crowned instead. This SadisticChoice forces the king to either exile his {{universally beloved|Leader}}, [[TheWisePrince virtuous]] first-born or [[SeriousBusiness shame his family's reputation for adhering to their word and dishonor his ancestors]]. The King complies with her request, but promptly [[DeathByDespair dies of a broken heart]] [[LaserGuidedKarma (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 -- [[UndyingLoyalty waltzes off to find and crown his brother]]. Since their father is dead and can't revoke his oath, [[HonorBeforeReason Rama feels obliged to serve his 14 years of exile]], but once he returns after many heroic deeds, [[RightfulKingReturns Bharat is all too happy to hand over the crown]].

* ''Literature/KushielsLegacy'': Lyonette de Trevalion, known as "the Lioness of Azzalle," is a Princess of the Blood, and plots with her son Baudoin to get him on the throne. It becomes a DefiedTrope when both mother and son get caught, put on trial, and executed for treason.

* Subverted in the ''{{Literature/Ramayana}}''. King Dasarath has four sons by his three wives, the oldest of which is about to be crowned upon the King's decision to retire, but on the day before the coronation, [[WickedStepmother his favorite wife Kaikeyi]] (mother of the second-born Bharat) decides to call in a favor--after she saved his life in a previous war (she was his charioteer at the time), the king promised that he would grant her two wishes whenever she felt like it. [[SadisticChoice She asks for the eldest son to be exiled]] and for Bharat, who was visiting his grandfather at the time, to be crowned instead, forcing the king to either exile his {{universally beloved|Leader}}, [[TheWisePrince virtuous]] first-born or [[SeriousBusiness shame his family's reputation for adhering to their word and dishonor his ancestors]]. The King complies with her request, but promptly [[DeathByDespair dies of a broken heart]] [[LaserGuidedKarma (helped along by a previous curse incurred in his youth.)]] Once Bharat returns to find his father dead and his brother exiled, he's ''absolutely absolutely horrified'', disowns his mother on the spot and, after much angst about being the son of such a wicked mother, [[UndyingLoyalty waltzes off to find & crown his brother]]. As their father is dead and can't revoke his oath, [[HonorBeforeReason the oldest prince feels obliged to serve his 14 years of exile]], but once he returns after many heroic deeds, [[RightfulKingReturns Bharat is all too happy to hand over the crown.]]

* According to Herodotus' Histories this happened with UsefulNotes/CyrusTheGreat of Persia. 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.

* 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[[/note]] 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 [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saeculum_obscurum had that]] [[DecadentCourt sort of]] [[CorruptChurch reputation]].
* 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 [[HoistByHisOwnPetard eventually Subh herself]], henceforth ruling as dictator while keeping Hisham as the claimed Caliph.
* UsefulNotes/HenryTheSecond of England, first King of UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfPlantagenet, became king due to his mother Matilda, the only legitimate surviving child of Henry the First of UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfNormandy. He 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 she agreed with Stephen that Henry would be his heir, which happened as Stephen died next year.

* Isabella of France, known as the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast 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 [[GoodAdulteryBadAdultery her own lover, Roger Mortimer,]] and invaded England. She quickly had her opponents murdered--one had his head brought to her--and then [[MurderTheHypotenuse 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 UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar 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 to her son, [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfTudor Henry VII of England]]. 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 UsefulNotes/WarsOfTheRoses 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, UsefulNotes/HenryVIII, before her death.

For gender reasons (HeirClubForMen), daughter variants are less common, but not unheard of--many an ambitious mother paraded her beautiful young daughter before a king or prince in hope she'd be picked as a HotConsort. In that case, it sometimes becomes a three-generational plan: She gets her daughter made queen or princess, and then her daughter has a son who will become king. Alternatively, if the mother in question ''does'' make her daughter queen, then the mother could become the king’s mother-in-law.

** At the end of the first book, Queen Elara Merandus succeeds in putting her son, Maven, to the throne of Norta, having [[CompellingVoice compelled]] her stepson and the heir apparent, Tiberias VII "Cal", to kill his father, Tiberias VI.

** 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 [[spoiler: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 he's young, she--in varying degrees--rules in his name, thought he's a loose cannon and sometimes goes off on his own.
** Rather interestingly, in a gender-inversion, Cersei ''herself'' became queen thanks to her father Tywin's scheming. It took two tries--the first prince he tried to marry her to said no--but he got it in the end.

** Queen Alicent Hightower was this. 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 their oldest son Aegon instead, without success. Upon Viserys' death, she 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". By the end, Aegon II had died, as had all his brothers, and all but one of his kids.
** During the chaos that engulfed King's Landing during the above-mentioned Dance of the Dragons, a woman named Essie claimed that her son Gaemon--four years old at the time--was the bastard of Aegon II and proclaimed him king. After the city was reclaimed, she was hanged.

* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': The episode "[[Recap/CriminalMindsS10E18RockCreekPark 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 [[TheUnfavorite basically discarded his older brother]] when a childhood injury disfigured him, making a successful career in politics unlikely. [[spoiler: 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.

* ''Series/GameOfThrones'': Like in the books (see Literature), Cersei is the one who puts Joffrey in line for the throne by [[spoiler:killing Robert and imprisoning Ned Stark]]. Though it is actually Joffrey who [[spoiler:kills all of Robert's bastard children]], out of the fear that one of them will try to claim the throne. Eventually, after [[spoiler:all her children have died]], Cersei [[spoiler:crowns herself Queen Regnant of Westeros.]]

* ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'': A two-generation plan. Otto Hightower is hand of the king (think the king's NumberTwo). 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 HeirClubForMen 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 TheCoup. A civil war begins, with Aegon as a claimant and mom Alicent and grandpa Otto as his biggest supporters.

* An unusual heroic example: in ''Series/MagnificentCentury'', it's the protagonist Hürrem whose scheming makes one of her sons the next sultan… although to be fair, antagonist Mahidevran is doing the exact same thing. And 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''.) [[spoiler:Hürrem wins... unfortunately the son that ends up winning is the InadequateInheritor, foreshadowing the decline of the Ottoman Empire.]]
* An example of Mother Makes You ''Queen'' occurs in ''Series/OnceUponATime'': Cora manipulates events so that Regina saves the recently widowed King's young daughter and he takes Regina as a wife. [[spoiler:It is also revealed she killed the previous Queen in the first place.]]

* In Myth/EgyptianMythology after her husband Osiris was murdered by his [[CainAndAbel brother Seth]] who became Pharaoh, Isis made sure her son Horus could claim the rule from his EvilUncle.
* In Myth/CelticMythology, when Fergus mac Roich married Ness, she gave him one condition: allow her 7-year-old son Conchobor to serve as a PuppetKing 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 UniversallyBelovedLeader (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.

* In ''Theatre/{{Pippin}}'', Fastrada is scheming to get her son Lewis on the throne. She's cool will getting her husband and stepson killed to do it.

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 harem}}s with many concubines--but they only had one mother (who was usually the [[TopWife 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 [[note]] literally "Mother Sultan" [[/note]]."

* In ''Fanfic/BeautifulFictionsBabylon'', the Babylonian boy king, Kaleo, [[spoiler:the Gate's first sacrifice]] was the son of the BigBad Crown Princess Carmine.

* ''Franchise/DoctorWho'', [[Recap/BigFinishDoctorWho125PaperCuts "Paper Cuts"]]: [[spoiler: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.]]

* ''Series/CriminalMinds'': 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 [[TheUnfavorite basically discarded his older brother]] when a childhood injury disfigured him, making a successful career in politics unlikely. [[spoiler: 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.
* ''Series/DarkMatter'': 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.

* In Myth/CelticMythology, when Fergus mac Roich married Ness, she gave him one condition: allow her 7-year-old son Conchobor to serve as a PuppetKing 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 a HundredPercentAdorationRating (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.

* Subverted in the ''{{Literature/Ramayana}}''. King Dasarath has four sons by his three wives, the oldest of which is about to be crowned upon the King's decision to retire, but on the day before the coronation, [[WickedStepmother his favorite wife Kaikeyi]] (mother of the second-born Bharat) decides to call in a favor--after she saved his life in a previous war (she was his charioteer at the time), the king promised that he would grant her two wishes whenever she felt like it. [[SadisticChoice She asks for the eldest son to be exiled]] and for Bharat, who was visiting his grandfather at the time, to be crowned instead, forcing the king to either exile his [[HundredPercentAdorationRating universally beloved]], [[TheWisePrince virtuous]] first-born or [[SeriousBusiness shame his family's reputation for adhering to their word and dishonor his ancestors]]. The King complies with her request, but promptly [[DeathByDespair dies of a broken heart]] [[LaserGuidedKarma (helped along by a previous curse incurred in his youth.)]] Once Bharat returns to find his father dead and his brother exiled, he's ''absolutely absolutely horrified'', disowns his mother on the spot and, after much angst about being the son of such a wicked mother, [[UndyingLoyalty waltzes off to find & crown his brother]]. As their father is dead and can't revoke his oath, [[HonorBeforeReason the oldest prince feels obliged to serve his 14 years of exile]], but once he returns after many heroic deeds, [[RightfulKingReturns Bharat is all too happy to hand over the crown.]]

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.

For gender reasons (HeirClubForMen), daughter variants are less common, but not unheard of—many an ambitious mother paraded her beautiful young daughter before a king or prince in hope she'd be picked as a HotConsort. In that case, it sometimes becomes a three-generational plan: She gets her daughter made queen or princess, and then her daughter has a son who will become king. Alternatively, if the mother in question ''does'' make her daughter queen, then the mother could become the king’s mother-in-law.

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 harem}}s with many concubines—but they only had one mother (who was usually the [[TopWife 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 [[note]] literally "Mother Sultan" [[/note]]."

** 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.

* In ''Literature/TheCrownJewels'' by Creator/WalterJonWilliams, 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.

** 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 [[spoiler: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 he's young, she—in varying degrees—rules in his name, thought he's a loose cannon and sometimes goes off on his own.
** Rather interestingly, in a gender-inversion, Cersei ''herself'' became queen thanks to her father Tywin's scheming. It took two tries—the first prince he tried to marry her to said no—but he got it in the end.
** Visenya Targaryen—one of Aegon the Conqueror's sister-wives—is suspected of this, with her [[WickedStepmother stepson]]/[[EvilAunt 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 this. 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 their oldest son Aegon instead, without success. Upon Viserys' death, she 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". By the end, Aegon II had died, as had all his brothers, and all but one of his kids.
** During the chaos that engulfed King's Landing during the above-mentioned Dance of the Dragons, a woman named Essie claimed that her son Gaemon—four years old at the time—was the bastard of Aegon II and proclaimed him king. After the city was reclaimed, she was hanged.

-->'''Tywin:''' Robert Baratheon is dead. Joffrey rules in King's Landing.
-->'''Tyrion:''' You mean my sister rules.
-->'''Tywin:''' [''nods'']
* ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'': King Viserys Targaryen designates his only surviving child Rhaenyra as heir to the Iron Throne upon the death of his wife Aemma, but then marries his daughter's best friend Alicent and has three more children by her, including two sons who would otherwise be ahead of Rhaenyra due to the HeirClubForMen. Alicent and Rhaenyra [[WeUsedToBeFriends become bitter rivals]] and out of fear that Rhaenyra will put her children to the sword to solidify her claim, Alicent prepares to groom her son Aegon to become king. [[spoiler:A mistaken DeathbedConfession from Viserys convinces Alicent that Aegon is his chosen heir and has him crowned Aegon II, starting a civil war with Rhaenyra's faction, though in that case Alicent's father Otto Hightower had already prepared TheCoup to crown Aegon regardless.]]
* ''Series/IClaudius'': 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.)

* Subverted in the ''{{Literature/Ramayana}}''. King Dasarath has four sons by his three wives, the oldest of which is about to be crowned upon the King's decision to retire, but on the day before the coronation, [[WickedStepmother his favorite wife Kaikeyi]] (mother of the second-born Bharat) decides to call in a favor—after she saved his life in a previous war (she was his charioteer at the time), the king promised that he would grant her two wishes whenever she felt like it. [[SadisticChoice She asks for the eldest son to be exiled]] and for Bharat, who was visiting his grandfather at the time, to be crowned instead, forcing the king to either exile his [[HundredPercentAdorationRating universally beloved]], [[TheWisePrince virtuous]] first-born or [[SeriousBusiness shame his family's reputation for adhering to their word and dishonor his ancestors]]. The King complies with her request, but promptly [[DeathByDespair dies of a broken heart]] [[LaserGuidedKarma (helped along by a previous curse incurred in his youth.)]] Once Bharat returns to find his father dead and his brother exiled, he's ''absolutely absolutely horrified'', disowns his mother on the spot and, after much angst about being the son of such a wicked mother, [[UndyingLoyalty waltzes off to find & crown his brother]]. As their father is dead and can't revoke his oath, [[HonorBeforeReason the oldest prince feels obliged to serve his 14 years of exile]], but once he returns after many heroic deeds, [[RightfulKingReturns Bharat is all too happy to hand over the crown.]]

* The Julio-Claudian dynasty of Roman emperors were a BigScrewedUpFamily—if only because the chaos of their tenure (at least after {{UsefulNotes/Augustus}}) often involved this ([[ArtisticLicenseHistory allegedly]]).
** Livia Drusilla—third wife of the emperor {{UsefulNotes/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 HistoricalVillainUpgrade.
** Agrippina the Younger[[note]]Livia's great-granddaughter[[/note]] is thought to have poisoned her third husband Claudius so UsefulNotes/{{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 SelfMadeOrphan.
** Curiously enough, the rise of the Julio-Claudians under {{UsefulNotes/Augustus}} would not have been consolidated had the former Gaius Octavian not been contending with another case of this: {{UsefulNotes/Cleopatra}}, Queen of Egypt, who had not only swayed his rival UsefulNotes/MarkAntony to her side, but also claims the son she has installed as Pharaoh—Caesarion—was a legal and biological son of UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar. By extension, the boy has greater claim to everything the late dictator owns than Octavian. Octavian, of course, would not let that stand.

* Isabella of France, known as the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast 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 [[GoodAdulteryBadAdultery her own lover, Roger Mortimer,]] and invaded England. She quickly had her opponents murdered—one had his head brought to her—and then [[MurderTheHypotenuse 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 UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar 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.
* 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 RoyalHarem, 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 SuccessionCrisis.

* ''Series/HouseOfTheDragon'': King Viserys Targaryen designates his only surviving child Rhaenyra as heir to the Iron Throne upon the death of his wife Aemma, but then marries his daughter's best friend Alicent and has three more children by her, including two sons who would otherwise be ahead of Rhaenyra due to the HeirClubForMen. Alicent and Rhaenyra [[WeUsedToBeFriends become bitter rivals]] and out of fear that Rhaenyra will put her children to the sword to solidify her claim, Alicent prepares to groom her son Aegon to become king. [[spoiler:A mistaken DeathbedConfession from Viserys convinces Alicent that Aegon is his chosen heir and has him crowned Aegon II, starting a civil war with Rhaenyra's faction.]]

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.

For gender reasons (HeirClubForMen), daughter variants are less common, but not unheard of--many an ambitious mother paraded her beautiful young daughter before a king or prince in hope she'd be picked as a HotConsort. In that case, it sometimes becomes a three-generational plan: She gets her daughter made queen or princess, and then her daughter has a son who will become king. Alternatively, if the mother in question ''does'' make her daughter queen, then the mother could become the king’s mother-in-law.

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 harem}}s with many concubines--but they only had one mother (who was usually the [[TopWife 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 [[note]] literally "Mother Sultan" [[/note]]."

** 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.

* In ''Literature/TheCrownJewels'' by Creator/WalterJonWilliams, 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.

** 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 [[spoiler: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 he's young, she--in varying degrees--rules in his name, thought he's a loose cannon and sometimes goes off on his own.
** Rather interestingly, in a gender-inversion, Cersei ''herself'' became queen thanks to her father Tywin's scheming. It took two tries--the first prince he tried to marry her to said no--but he got it in the end.
** Visenya Targaryen--one of Aegon the Conqueror's sister-wives--is suspected of this, with her [[WickedStepmother stepson]]/[[EvilAunt 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 this. 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 their oldest son Aegon instead, without success. Upon Viserys' death, she 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". By the end, Aegon II had died, as had all his brothers, and all but one of his kids.
** During the chaos that engulfed King's Landing during the above-mentioned Dance of the Dragons, a woman named Essie claimed that her son Gaemon--four years old at the time--was the bastard of Aegon II and proclaimed him king. After the city was reclaimed, she was hanged.

* ''Series/IClaudius'': 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.)

* Subverted in the ''{{Literature/Ramayana}}''. King Dasarath has four sons by his three wives, the oldest of which is about to be crowned upon the King's decision to retire, but on the day before the coronation, [[WickedStepmother his favorite wife Kaikeyi]] (mother of the second-born Bharat) decides to call in a favor--after she saved his life in a previous war (she was his charioteer at the time), the king promised that he would grant her two wishes whenever she felt like it. [[SadisticChoice She asks for the eldest son to be exiled]] and for Bharat, who was visiting his grandfather at the time, to be crowned instead, forcing the king to either exile his [[HundredPercentAdorationRating universally beloved]], [[TheWisePrince virtuous]] first-born or [[SeriousBusiness shame his family's reputation for adhering to their word and dishonor his ancestors]]. The King complies with her request, but promptly [[DeathByDespair dies of a broken heart]] [[LaserGuidedKarma (helped along by a previous curse incurred in his youth.)]] Once Bharat returns to find his father dead and his brother exiled, he's ''absolutely absolutely horrified'', disowns his mother on the spot and, after much angst about being the son of such a wicked mother, [[UndyingLoyalty waltzes off to find & crown his brother]]. As their father is dead and can't revoke his oath, [[HonorBeforeReason the oldest prince feels obliged to serve his 14 years of exile]], but once he returns after many heroic deeds, [[RightfulKingReturns Bharat is all too happy to hand over the crown.]]

* The Julio-Claudian dynasty of Roman emperors were a BigScrewedUpFamily--if only because the chaos of their tenure (at least after {{UsefulNotes/Augustus}}) often involved this ([[ArtisticLicenseHistory allegedly]]).
** Livia Drusilla--third wife of the emperor {{UsefulNotes/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 HistoricalVillainUpgrade.
** Agrippina the Younger[[note]]Livia's great-granddaughter[[/note]] is thought to have poisoned her third husband Claudius so UsefulNotes/{{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 SelfMadeOrphan.
** Curiously enough, the rise of the Julio-Claudians under {{UsefulNotes/Augustus}} would not have been consolidated had the former Gaius Octavian not been contending with another case of this: {{UsefulNotes/Cleopatra}}, Queen of Egypt, who had not only swayed his rival UsefulNotes/MarkAntony to her side, but also claims the son she has installed as Pharaoh--Caesarion--was a legal and biological son of UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar. By extension, the boy has greater claim to everything the late dictator owns than Octavian. Octavian, of course, would not let that stand.

* Isabella of France, known as the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast 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 [[GoodAdulteryBadAdultery her own lover, Roger Mortimer,]] and invaded England. She quickly had her opponents murdered--one had his head brought to her--and then [[MurderTheHypotenuse 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 UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar 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.
* 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 RoyalHarem, 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 SuccessionCrisis.

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.

For gender reasons (HeirClubForMen), daughter variants are less common, but not unheard of—many an ambitious mother paraded her beautiful young daughter before a king or prince in hope she'd be picked as a HotConsort. In that case, it sometimes becomes a three-generational plan: She gets her daughter made queen or princess, and then her daughter has a son who will become king. Alternatively, if the mother in question DOES make her daughter queen, then the mother could become the king’s mother-in-law.

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 harem}}s with many concubines—but they only had one mother (who was usually the [[TopWife 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 [[note]] literally "Mother Sultan" [[/note]]."

** 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.

* In ''Literature/TheCrownJewels'' by Creator/WalterJonWilliams, 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.

** 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 [[spoiler: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 he's young, she—in varying degrees—rules in his name, thought he's a loose cannon and sometimes goes off on his own.
** Rather interestingly, in a gender-inversion, Cersei ''herself'' became queen thanks to her father Tywin's scheming. It took two tries—the first prince he tried to marry her to said no—but he got it in the end.
** Visenya Targaryen—one of Aegon the Conqueror's sister-wives—is suspected of this, with her [[WickedStepmother stepson]]/[[EvilAunt 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 this. 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 their oldest son Aegon instead, without success. Upon Viserys' death, she 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". By the end, Aegon II had died, as had all his brothers, and all but one of his kids.
** During the chaos that engulfed King's Landing during the above-mentioned Dance of the Dragons, a woman named Essie claimed that her son Gaemon—four years old at the time—was the bastard of Aegon II and proclaimed him king. After the city was reclaimed, she was hanged.

* ''Series/IClaudius'': 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.)

* Subverted in the ''{{Literature/Ramayana}}''—King Dasarath has four sons by his three wives, the oldest of which is about to be crowned upon the King's decision to retire, but on the day before the coronation, [[WickedStepmother his favorite wife Kaikeyi]] (mother of the second-born Bharat) decides to call in a favor—after she saved his life in a previous war (she was his charioteer at the time), the king promised that he would grant her two wishes whenever she felt like it. [[SadisticChoice She asks for the eldest son to be exiled]] and for Bharat, who was visiting his grandfather at the time, to be crowned instead, forcing the king to either exile his [[HundredPercentAdorationRating universally beloved]], [[TheWisePrince virtuous]] first-born or [[SeriousBusiness shame his family's reputation for adhering to their word and dishonor his ancestors]]. The King complies with her request, but promptly [[DeathByDespair dies of a broken heart]] [[LaserGuidedKarma (helped along by a previous curse incurred in his youth.)]] Once Bharat returns to find his father dead and his brother exiled, he's ''absolutely absolutely horrified'', disowns his mother on the spot and, after much angst about being the son of such a wicked mother, [[UndyingLoyalty waltzes off to find & crown his brother]]. As their father is dead and can't revoke his oath, [[HonorBeforeReason the oldest prince feels obliged to serve his 14 years of exile]], but once he returns after many heroic deeds, [[RightfulKingReturns Bharat is all too happy to hand over the crown.]]

* The Julio-Claudian dynasty of Roman emperors were a BigScrewedUpFamily—if only because the chaos of their tenure (at least after {{UsefulNotes/Augustus}}) often involved this ([[ArtisticLicenseHistory allegedly]]).
** Livia Drusilla—third wife of the emperor {{UsefulNotes/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 HistoricalVillainUpgrade.
** Agrippina the Younger[[note]]Livia's great-granddaughter[[/note]] is thought to have poisoned her third husband Claudius so UsefulNotes/{{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 SelfMadeOrphan.
** Curiously enough, the rise of the Julio-Claudians under {{UsefulNotes/Augustus}} would not have been consolidated had the former Gaius Octavian not been contending with another case of this: {{UsefulNotes/Cleopatra}}, Queen of Egypt, who had not only swayed his rival UsefulNotes/MarkAntony to her side, but also claims the son she has installed as Pharaoh—Caesarion—was a legal and biological son of UsefulNotes/JuliusCaesar. By extension, the boy has greater claim to everything the late dictator owns than Octavian. Octavian, of course, would not let that stand.

* Isabella of France, known as the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast 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 [[GoodAdulteryBadAdultery her own lover, Roger Mortimer,]] and invaded England. She quickly had her opponents murdered—one had his head brought to her—and then [[MurderTheHypotenuse 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 UsefulNotes/TheHundredYearsWar 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.
* 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 [[RoyalHarem harems]], 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 SuccessionCrisis.

* In ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' (and ''Unlimited''), this is the aim of [[EvilSorceress Morgaine Le Fey]], for her son Mordred (to whom she has granted immortality and eternal youth with her magic) to assume [[Myth/KingArthur the throne of Camelot]]. She had pursued this goal for centuries, using and [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness discarding]] many men (including [[ComicBook/{{Etrigan}} Jason Blood]]) with promises of power and love to further her schemes. Unfortunately, circumstances result in Mordred's eternal youth enchantment being broken, [[AgeWithoutYouth rendering him an undying husk of a man]]. After this, Morgaine [[EvenEvilHasLovedOnes opts to abandon her quest in order to care for him]].

! Examples:

* 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 on 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 it and unified Castile and León for good.

* 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 a mental disorder like autism). The mastermind was his mother, a Basque concubine 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 then allied with Subh (possibly becoming her lover) to get rid of al-Mushafi, Ghalib, and [[HoistByHisOwnPetard eventually Subh herself]]. Afterward, Almanzor ruled as dictator while keeping Hisham as the claimed Caliph.

* 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. The mastermind of his enthronization was his mother, the Basque concubine Subh (birth name 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 then allied with Subh (possibly as her lover) to get rid of al-Mushafi, Ghalib, and eventually Subh herself, becoming de-facto dictator while keeping Hisham as the claimed Caliph.

* 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 a 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.