Gideon,
This is best suited for Mathis as he cares more about this and has been adventuring for much longer than I have, so he will know better than I.
As for the more recent, Lycergis gave up his crown (which to my knowledge is a powerful magic item/artifact) to the Kingdom of Alacar during the fight against Bleak as a show of good will between the two nations.
As for the past, I believe Lycergis took reign over Augustus because Augustus was found out to be a lich, and Lycergis had rights to the crown being back from the Time of Many Kings.
The Eastlands (Now the Kingdom of Dragonreach) used to be filled with Undead. Adventurers were able to fight through this easily enough, however The Old Capitol City was the major hub of the undead. This was right before my brothers and I started adventuring, however we partook in the war*. Lycergis** selected a number of commanders to lead this siege, defeat the undead, and claim the city as part of Dragonreach once again.
I honestly never paid much attention to this growing up.
-Banradi
*This is only due to some contracts created by the Celestines to go and fix some of the manipulations Bleak changed during the gather that Bleak manipulated time to his advantage (causing those not timeless or not physically at the gather to not be aware of these changes)
**Technically, this was Voth, although since Bleak removed Voth from existence, that just means that Lycergis took the seat earlier.