George has often credited Maurice Druon’s series the Accursed Kings, set in the 14th Century French court, as “the original Game of Thrones.” So, on that basis, I gave it a go.

I am glad I did! To say ACK was an ‘inspiration’ doesn’t really do it justice. There is so much in these books that the ‘game of thrones’ part of story set in KL (not so much the more magical or apocalyptic parts elsewhere) almost feels like AU Accursed Kings fanfic, albeit with a crossover event with the War of the Roses.

spoilers for the AK books (and 14th Century French/English history, to the extent there is any actual commonality)

The Accursed Kings books have everything from a cat-killing prince and a proto sky cell through a baby swap, from a hilarious & disastrous council meeting to an election won through false rumours and duplicity, a fatalistic prophecy, and lots and lots of poison, and more besides.

Amongst all that, there are also some very interesting thematic, plot and character similarities. One is Isabella/Mortimer and Cersei, and another is potentially Edward III and Tommen (or maybe Myrcella).

In the AK, Queen Isabella is the beautiful daughter of the Phillip the Fair of France. She is bargained away at a young age to marry the king of England, Edward II. Edward II is young and handsome, and at first Isabella rather likes him. She bears him several children, but the relationship sours. Edward II not only prefers men, but he has absolutely dreadful taste in them. His ‘favourites’, who he flaunts, are scheming and grasping and Edward II rewards them by giving them Isabella’s lands and property. She is utterly humiliated and grows to hate her husband. There are shades of Robert and his whores.

Isabella begins to conspire with a conniving and flamboyant French knight, and through their plotting she becomes involved in a plot to reveal that her brother's wives, the princesses, were having affairs. Partially through Isabella’s machinations the princesses are caught. Isabella then acts as one of the judges, treats them harshly and argues for no mercy. They are public ally shamed, have their heads shaved and are held as prisoners, with two of the three of them later being assassinated (the third is pardoned after establishing she was not directly involved). The nascent threads of Cersei’s crimes, trial and conspiracy against Margaery are all here.

Later, Isabella again travels to France, on the pretext of negotiating peace. Isabella takes her 13 or 14 year old son, the future Edward III, the heir to the throne, with her. Edward is very young, but is aware of his mother’s humiliation, and the text states that if forced to choose, he’d chose his French family over his English. He is a quiet, intense boy who says very little but watches intently.

In France Isabella meets up with Mortimer, an exiled English baron who has himself escaped Edward II. They fall in love and Isabella plots to return and overthrow Edward II, putting Edward III on the throne, with Mortimer or her as regent. Meanwhile they shack up together and have a scandalous, public affair.

Isabella, Mortimer and Edward III travel to Hainault, where Isabella seeks help from the Count. There, Edward meets and falls in love with the Baron’s 13 year old daughter Phillipa. In the books it is a love match, although in real life their parents probably just arranged a marriage. Phillipa is cunning and clever, and becomes young Edward’s trusted political advisor.

With the help of Hainault and others, Isabella and Mortimer take England. Edward II is imprisoned, Edward III is crowned, and Mortimer becomes regent.

Edward III and Phillipa are young and instantly very popular. Phillipa supplants Isabella in Edward III’s heart, and also her place in Court (taking most of what she held dear). Once they marry, Isabella realises that she is losing control over her son. Not wanting to relinquish her status as queen, Phillipa’s coronation is postponed two years, but it is inevitable. Isabella muses about being supplanted, is bitter about it, but accepts it grudgingly. In this at least, she is no Cersei.

Mortimer, however, kind of is.

Mortimer, having railed against Edward II for his incompetence, his brutality, and his undue favoritism toward his cronies, fast descends into the same kinds of behaviour. Having failed to deliver as regent, the kingdom grows rebellious, and he becomes increasingly despotic. As revolution and revolt is plotted, Mortimer starts murdering people, beginning with the imprisoned (and barely alive - he is imprisoned in a room with something resembling a basic version of a sky cell) Edward II, whose death he pressures Isabella into approving. The Mortimer-keeping-power-through-murder thing culminates with an extra judicial murder of Edward III’s uncle.

Edward III and Phillipa, meanwhile, have a son, and hence an heir. With his legacy secure, and seething with anger at Mortimer’s antics, Edward III organises an incursion into the castle, stages a coup, executes Mortimer, and assumes the crown in his own right. He also imprisons his mother. Legend has it Isabella went insane, whiling away her time in that tower until she died (although the reality is she seemed to have lived a pretty comfortable retirement).

But what does this have to do with ASOIAF?

Well, Cersei has more than a few parallels with both Isabella and Mortimer, or perhaps a combination of the two of them. She is a humiliated queen who plots the death of her husband in order to put her son on the throne and rule through him. Like Cersei, Isabella despises her husband for his humiliation of her, and also for his debauchery, favourtism and misrule, her and Mortimer’s regime soons resembles all the worst aspects it. Edward III’s younger queen displaces Isabella, first in Edward III’s heart, then in the public eye, and then finally as the real power in England. At the very end of her story, she is “cast down” and imprisoned by her son - all that she loves is taken from her, and she fades away in a tower, the life (metaphorically) “choked” from her.

Sound familiar?

To sum up

It seems to me there are a lot of possible parallels between both Cersei and Isabella/Mortimer. There are parallels between Tommen and Edward III too, particularly when Marg is added into the mix. And it was Edward III and his young queen who ultimately took everything from his mother and brought her down.

To finish off, Isabella’s story also resembles, in some ways, that of Alicent Hightower, who also losses most of her children, her status as queen, and even her sanity in Dance of Dragons, and ends her life imprisoned in a tower, with everything that made her powerful and respected and her having been taken, the life draining from her until she dies of Winter Fever. Cersei has a lot of parallels to Alicent too, from their fathers as hands to their affinity with the colour green, and perhaps it wouldn’t be too surprising if their shared a similar fate.

Anyway, just some food for thought in the never ending debate about what happens to Cersei.