In the eyes of a king, he would do anything to maintain power by the use of fear because fear is the ultimate motivator.
For example, in Antigone Creon (the king) gets mad with Antigone (his niece) when she broke his edict even though she heard his edict and brags about it when she gets caught and says all his power is “weakness itself against the immortal unrecorded laws of god” (lines 69-70). He is mad