"How Should My Royalty/Nobility Behave?"
How To Answer This For Yourself!

What are their values and beliefs?

The dominant values and beliefs of the upper class will have a strong influence. Once you decide what their overall cultural climate is like, you can start extrapolating some ideas of how things might go. Here are a few aspects you might consider:

• Are they fairly religious? If so, a new monarch might pray for divine guidance at a coronation ceremony, or royals might be expected to attend religious services or ceremonies.
• Is this a culture that emphasizes stoicism and self-control? If so, parties are more likely to be calm, quiet affairs rather than loud and wild.
• What kind of ideas do they have about modesty and attractiveness? This will affect the fashion they wear.
• What traits, behaviors, and interests do they consider to be signs of good upbringing and character? This is what they'll judge people on.
• What do they consider to be inappropriate behavior? This is what people will be punished for.
• What ideas do they have about gender roles? How about the roles of different social classes? Different professions? This will play a huge role in how they expect people to behave, and how they treat them.

If you find yourself having a hard time trying to decide what their values ought to be, you can take a look at Tips To Create Fictional Philosophies & Value Systems.

Who has the most power and influence in the court?

Now, stop and ask yourself who all has the most power and influence in the royal court. Obviously this is going to include the reigning monarch, but it can also include the monarch's close friends, associates, and family members.

Ask yourself about what kind of personality and temperament the monarch has. Are we looking at someone who enjoys a lot of pomp and pageantry, or is this someone who has a more pragmatic, down-to-earth attitude? Does this person enjoy formal ritual, or is this seen more as unnecessary fuss? What does this person consider to be appropriate and acceptable in terms of fashion and behavior? What does this person consider inappropriate or disrespectful? How does this person believe that people of unequal rank should relate to and treat each other?

Now consider who all has influence over the monarch. What are they all like? What kinds of personalities do they have? How do they think things ought to be done? How much are they willing or able to convince the monarch of this?

While you're working this out, don't forget that their ages should be taken into account, too. Someone old enough to be a great-grandparent probably isn't going to have the same ideals and notions as a young twenty-something, and vice-versa. Young people often want to change things to suit their own ideals, but older ones often have things just the way they like them already, and see any further change as pointless, or even reckless.

What kind of image do they want to cultivate?

How do they want to appear to their subjects? Are we looking at people who want to come off as fierce and stern and thus keep people too afraid to disobey them? Or are we maybe looking at people who want to create a warm, caring image to encourage people to trust and love them? Do they want to appear traditional? Forward-thinking? Peaceful?

Of course, the image they want to send to people doesn't necessarily have to line up with their action behaviors (how many people act like all they want is peace while bucking for war every chance they get?), but it'll still have an impact on what they do and how they conduct things. For example, if they're concerned with looking like they care about the poor, they might avoid wearing ostentatious garb or breaking out the golden dinner plates. If they want to seem fierce and strong, their fashion and rituals might have a militaristic appearance. If they want to seem peaceful and intellectual, they might eschew militaristic aesthetics in favor of something softer and more refined-looking.

Essentially, you need to ask yourself two questions here: how do they want the public to see them, and what can they do to try to look that way?

What can they afford?

With all the extravagance that royalty and nobility often surround themselves with, one might suppose that they have bottomless pockets. However, this is rarely the case. Financing the military will take up a good chunk of their budget, as will building and maintaining fortified structures (EG, castles, military bases, and the like). They'll probably also want to have their own transport for shuttling themselves and those who work for them to other places, whether by land, sea, air, or some other fantastic means. They might hold lavish parties to get together and mingle with other royals and nobles, whether for fun or to try to foster goodwill. In addition, they might be financing exploration voyages, education, public services, religious institutions, and any number of other things.

Essentially, it's a lot easier than one might imagine for a government to run short on money, since running a country is always a costly operation. If a country is in bad financial condition, they may wish to forgo things like having too many expensive lavish parties, insisting that everyone in the court wears a particularly expensive type of clothing, or having scads of servants they don't actually need.

Of course, this isn't to say all royals and nobles are going to have good financial sense - they just aren't. It's perfectly plausible and likely for some of them to go on holding lavish celebrations while the common folk are dying of starvation, or somesuch. Still, it's good to consider their financial state, and ask yourself how it might impact what they're doing.