Why does stability drop whenever I get a new monarch?

Playing as France with a 1444 start, it seems that I keep losing stability every time my monarch dies, even if the heir has good stats and seemingly nothing is wrong.

It seems like I would spend a lot of admin power if I had to re-up stability every time there's a new king. Isn't there a way to avoid this? Why does it happen?

Solution 1:

As @Clyde as already pointed, it's just a game mechanic that is unavoidable and pointed out here http://www.eu4wiki.com/Ruler#Deaths

If you don't have any good modifiers for stability cost then I'd avoid using your ruler (or heir) as a general, unless they're terrible, like Castille's starting ruler and heir.

A further piece of advice is to get a stability cost modifier. My usual go to for this is under religious ideas(http://www.eu4wiki.com/Idea_groups#Religious) as Church Attendance Day.

If you want to avoid this entirely, switch to a republic. They won't suffer the stability hit and you'll also always get a leader with average stats(e.g. 1/4/1). There are events for switching for certain nations or you can let legitimacy fall low enough to spawn rebels.

Solution 2:

It's just part of the game and is unavoidable. It's one of the things you'll need to direct a portion of your admin power towards.

In real life, in a hereditary monarchy (or any authoritarian form of government), transitions of power were in fact destabalizing. You never know who might get ideas about taking power, and even if there's no question about who the new monarch is going to be, there's going to be an huge scramble among advisors, nobles, etc. to see who will have real influence in the new administration.