Although the "Mother-in-Law" is a bad person, she is not the worst character in the series. That honor would belong to two out of the three brothers, the both the MC's and ML's eldest brothers. In ML's case, it is simply a case of a being of utter trash, in MC's case, it is currently a complex issue. From what I understand, a lot of money was both taken from the treasury as well as borrowed from banks and sold via bonds to pay for a public works project. This project somehow failed, and most citizens demand recompense. The only way I see this actually happening is if it was like a dam construction project, and during construction, either the main dam or the temporary dam burst, leading to the dam getting washed away, but far more noticeably would be the loss of life of those further downstream. And finally, even if this did occur, it would not be the sole fault of the royal family unless various experts in the field highly recommended against it. Only if all the above mentioned occurred, could the anger of the people be justified. But that still does not explain why the citizens cared about the debt so much. Anyway, all that anger should have been directed at the king, and not his family, unless some family members were the ones to recommend it to the king, such as MC's eldest brother, who would be the current king. The fact that he abdicated implies that he was a coward, who was afraid of what the public would do to him for his mistakes, and as soon as he was able to pacify the mob, he dipped, leaving everyone else to deal with the aftermath. However, it was not just a abdication in favor of my brother, in order to ensure that his younger brother did not do something to endanger his life, he abdicated the entire royal family. What a coward. btw, this is all theory-crafting and speculation, I have no ideas what actually happened.