@Mistyharmony
Somewhat. But the royals should still have an army of their own based on their own territory. I doubt any Kings ever only relied on the nobles army and had no army of their own to speak of. The loyalty of their nobles/generals is a serious constant concern over whether they are going to stage a coup.
The fact that the king had no army whatsoever is weird. They could've easily staged a coup against the royals and installed themselves as the new king --- how would they stop them? They had no army. Especially considering these nobles weren't very loyal to begin with, as it turns out...
After the 200 year war, why would these nobles let the King take the spoils? It was the nobles' armies that bled. It was the nobles' soldiers that died. They put in the effort to maintain, train and armor up these soldiers and the king takes all the credit.
And when the king instituted a new law to create a new army, the nobles should've been REALLY against that, since it would mean taking citizens from their territories, their own potential soldiers, or just regular citizens to keep their territories thriving, to create an army that would not be theirs, using what would have been their soldiers. This action could've been seen as a direct declaration of war from the King against the nobles and instigated a rebellion by the nobles.
Imagine a king that seriously didn't have an army. They would live in fear every day of angering a noble, because that noble could just bring their army and shove a boot up the Kings arse whenever they wanted to.
I understand that this is just a contrived backstory for the purpose of making a genderbender story in a militaristic kingdom.
But I don't like a forced backstory that doesn't make much sense. It sets the bar for what follows.