474 POWEE OF MEXICAN KINGS. 



LIB. vn. sum ptuous a message, and purposely insolent, for vassals to 

 their Lord. The chiefe of the Counsell disdaining thereat, 

 said it was too bold that, not content with permission to 

 live in an others land, and to have water given them, but 

 they would have them goe to serve them : what a matter 

 was that? And whereon presumed this fugitive nation, 

 shut vp in the mud ? They would let them know how fit 

 they were to worke, and to abate their pride in taking from 

 them their land and their lives. 



In these termes and choller they left the king, whom 

 they did somwhat suspect, by reason of his grandchild, and 

 consulted againe anew what they were to doe, where they 

 resolved to make a generall proclamation that no Tepaneca 

 should have any commerce or trafficke with any Mexicaine, 

 that they should not goe to their Cittie, nor receive any 

 into theirs, vpon paine of death. Whereby we may vnder- 

 stand that the king did not absolutely cornmaund over his 

 people, and that he governed more like a Consul or a Duke 

 than a King, although since with their power the commaund 

 of Kings increased, growing absolute Tyrants, as you shal 

 see in the last Kings. For it hath beene an ordinarie thing 

 among the Barbarians, that such as their power hath beene, 

 such hath beene their commaund; yea, in our Histories of 

 Spaine we finde in some antient kings that manner of rule 

 which the Tepanecas vsed. Such were the first kings of 

 the Romans, but that Rome declined from Kings to Consuls, 

 and a Senate, till that after they came to be commauuded 

 by Emperours. But these Barbarians, of temperate Kings 

 became tyrants, of which governements a moderate monarchy 

 is the best and most assured. But returne we now vnto our 

 historie. 



The king of Azcapuzalco seeing the resolution of his sub- 

 iects, which was to kil the Mexicans, intreated them first to 

 steale away the yong king, his grand-childe, and afterwards 

 do what they pleased to the Mexicans. All in a manner 



