He did not mean to be cruel. If anybody had called him so,

He did not mean to be cruel. If anybody had called him
so, he would have resented it extremely. He would have said
that what he did was done entirely for the good of the
country. But he was a man who had always been accustomed to
consider himself first and foremost, believing that whatever
he wanted was sure to be right, and therefore he ought to have
it. So he tried to get it, and got it too, as people like him
very often do. Whether they enjoy it when they have it is
another question.
-- Dinah Craik, The Little Lame Prince