Bear meat and other meat from hunting sells fairly well. If you get the daily responsibility to hunt a bear, head off to the forest fresh and well fed, and add it to the queue 8 times (will only work before you complete the responsibility, so you have to do them all at once). Plus, for every time your people petition for a kingball match, rather than sponsoring it, charge admission, and you will GET $1000. Once you have maxed your popularity, you can take the money from the peasant when they find it on the farm too. Other ideas are, when you play another hero who makes LOTS of money, like the blacksmith or merchant, you drag and drop expensive items into their inventory and then sell them when you play the monarch again. That way it is VERY easy to make money. Plus, stretching quests out as long as you can and hunting and stuff in between helps get plenty of money. My monarch had close on 100k after only a few quests.
The one with the guy who wants to torture people (not the witch one), choose the button that says 'riiiight...' and the monarch suggests bringing up the ideas with the constable. They then say that they might have to have the constable over for dinner...
