History does have a way of coming around.
Last week I read The Road to Jonestown, about the Reverend Jim Jones, the Peoples Temple, and the mass suicide in Guyana. About halfway into the book there was a passage about how after a while, and this was even before the move to Guyana, there was no one around Jones who in any way pushed back against his delusional paranoia.
Right now I'm reading The Private Lives of the Tudors and I've just come across this, about Henry VIII immediately after he became King, right before his 18th birthday:
He had inherited the famed charm and charisma of this mother's family. Affable, quick-witted, and hugely generous, he was 'the man most full of heart' . . . .
But the new king had an altogether darker side. Indulged in childhood, he had grown into a highly strung, impulsive and vain young man with a terrifying and unpredictable temper. Those who served him would soon learn how swiftly his favour could be lost.
The Jonestown book also talks about how Jim's mother was convinced he was destined for greatness and told him that his whole life.