Page:Young Folks History Of Mexico.pdf/83

 Rh [A. D. 1436.] Nezahualcoyotl, as we have seen, left to his cousin, the King of Mexico, the subjecting of other tribes, and seems to have felt no distrust or envy of the growing power of the Mexicans. And it is worthy of notice that, while the names of his contemporaries have hardly survived the bloody kingdom they fought so hard to aggrandize, that of the King of Tezcoco has come down to us the subject of many eulogies by the native historians. When we come to the year of his death, we shall mention more in detail the glories of his reign.

Let us turn our attention to that growing capital of the Mexicans, which seemed ambitious to reach its arms from sea to sea. The fierce followers of Itzcoatl took the leading part in every contest in which the allied armies were engaged; "they became practically masters of the whole country, and were on the point of subjugating even their allies, or of falling before a combination of their foes, when they fell before a foe from across the sea."

During the reign of Itzcoatl a difference arose between him and the Tezcocan monarch as to who was best entitled to the great title of Chichimecatl Tecuhtli, or chief of the Chichimec empire. As one who occupied the ancient Chichimec throne, Nezahualcoyotl was deemed to have the best claim to this honor, though by the aid of Mexican troops and the courtesy of their king, he had been reestablished in his position. "Yet," says one writer, "although Itzcoatl and his successors by their valor and desire of conquest took a leading part in all wars, and were in a sense masters of Anahuac, there is no sufficient evidence that they ever claimed any superiority in rank over the Acolhua (Tezcocan) monarch, or that any important difficulties occurred between the two powers until the last years of the Aztec period."

Itzcoatl died in the year 1436, having commanded the