You may know that Saul is traditionally viewed as the first monarch of Israel. However, Judges 9 tells the story of Gideon's son Abimelech who held a brief tenure as "king" during the time of the Judges.
The story is a sad one. The son of Gideon's concubine at Shechem, Abimelech (name literally meaning "father of a king") encourages his mother's relatives to agitate for him to be made ruler instead of the gang of his 70 half-brothers. The leaders of Shechem agree to back Abimelech's quest to become king. He summarily executes all of his brothers - except one who hid and escaped, Jotham.
In response, Jotham utters a veiled curse in the form of a parable about trees. Basically, his message is one warning of karma. The treachery that has been done against Gideon's family will be visited back upon both Abimelech and Shechem. What has gone around, Jotham warns, will come around. Like other places in the Bible, people reap the consequences of what they sow.
Sure enough, dissension quickly grows between Abimelech and the city of Shechem. In three short years, the former allies have become enemies and are dealing treacherously with one another. Ultimately, the leaders rebel against their "king" and he comes in with his army and razes the town and kills the elders.
His victory is short-lived, however, as Abimelech goes on to be killed in a battle at another town when a woman drops a millstone upon his head from a tower. Rather than suffer humiliation at being killed this way, he orders his armor-bearer to run him through.
"Thus God repaid Abimelech for the crime he committed against his father in killing his seventy brothers; and God also made all the wickedness of the people of Shechem fall back on their heads, and on them came the curse of Jotham son of Jerubbaal" (vs. 56-57).
So ends the sad tale of the "first king" of Israel!
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