Percival Graves

Lord Percival Graves was a British Lord who was a member of the House of Stuart. In a freak accident all the members of the House of Wyndham were killed except for two men. The first was Sir Cedric Willingham and the second was the American Ralph Jones. Both were descendents of Wyndham men who had gotten commoners pregnant. Willingham refused to allow himself to be named King, and the job was instead given to Jones.

Against Jones from the start because of his common American background, Percival Graves met with Prime Minister Jeffery Hale and Willingham in which he outlined his objections to Jones becoming the King. At that meeting he suggested that Parliament declare the Wyndham line to be at an end, and declare the House of Stuart to be the royal line once again. Since that is his line, Graves would be next in line for the throne. Hale decides that Jones has the right to the throne since he has royal blood and that the country would have to live with him. Graves says that he supposes so, and begins scheming over how he can embarrass Jones out of the job.

Graves soon learns that Jones is infatuated with one Miranda Greene - a salesgirl who took a job as a stripper to help make ends meet. He goes to Miranda with an offer to get photographs of the two in a compromising position in exchange for a large amount of money. At first she accepts, but soon she and Jones fall in love. She returns the money, but is unaware that Graves already has photographs. She decides to end the relationship, hoping to keep Jones from being hurt.

Graves uses the photographs to wreck any chance of a marriage by between Jones and Princess Anna of Finland. He does this by spreading the photographs around at a royal ball that the Finnish royalty were attending as guests. In the fallout, a Finnish company chooses a Japanese company over a British company for an important contract that would've created thousands of jobs in an economically depressed area. Pressure mounts for Jones to resign.

Meanwhile palace staff investigates and finds that royal page Gordon Halliwell was working with Graves to make sure that Miranda was invited to the ball. He was the one who reported on Jones to Graves. Scotland Yard takes over and finds checks made out to the photographer and negatives at Graves' house. Also Jones learns during this time that Willingham was also a Wyndham and had a better claim to the throne than he did. Jones decides to address Parliament the following day.

During that address, Jones accepts responsibility for his shortcomings and the harm they have done to the United Kingdom. He announces that he would give up the throne. Before leaving though, he presents the evidence of what Graves has done - hurting Jones and the United Kingdom in the hopes of returning to the throne. Jones has Graves arrested for violating the Treason Act of 1702 which among other things forbade interference in the proper succession of a monarch. Graves is led out of the chamber to boos and catcalls. Jones says that he did not bring that up to defend his own behavior, and that while he severely embarrassed England it was unintentional, but Graves did what he did deliberately. Jones then hands over the throne to Willingham, who takes the throne as Cedric I.