With desperate but successful valour he carried the redoubt and escaped
with life. All this passed under the immediate observation of Cromwell,
whose retentive memory never forgot any signal action, and whose
discriminating policy generally placed the man who performed it in a
situation suited to his character. He soon found Monthault to be as
perfidious and unprincipled as he was daring and ready to undertake any
office which would gratify his passions, which (being now past the
heyday of youth) were diverted from licentious indulgence by the more
substantial enjoyments of avarice and ambition.
At this time Cromwell was secretly panting to add the name and
paraphernalia of a King to the authority which he actually exercised.
The fanatics, whom he had so long courted, were the most active
opponents of this project. The other sectaries had been long convinced,
by experience, that their views of republican felicity and perfection
were illusory. The respectable dissenters always professed themselves
friends of a limited monarchy; many staunch royalists thought the
renewal of kingly power would gradually turn the public eye on their
exiled Prince; and some selfish ones would have been content with such
an approach to the old order of things as would give them back their
sequestered estates.
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