1883. Prowe's Life of Copernicus. 319
guidance. He accordingly looked round him in every direction for allies. The elastic quality of the Emperor Maximilian's pledges —
'Lunga promessa con l'attender corto ' —
became ere long discernible to him ; but he thought he could reckon on his cousin at Berlin, and even upon the Grand Duke at Moscow. From both he received encouragement, from neither efficient aid. It was precisely during the period of his most active warlike preparations, 1516-19, that the first residence of Copernicus at Schloss Allenstein fell.
The nominal peace which still prevailed was attended by all the inconveniences and by many of the worst horrors of open warfare. Communications were interrupted, trade was brought to a standstill, life and property were without safeguard. The ill-paid but well-mounted mercenaries of the Order swept in robber-raids over its borders, harrying, burning, devastating ; peasants fled in terror from their holdings ; customary services could no longer be exacted ; the ordinary conditions of peaceful country life were disturbed or destroyed. The heavy anxieties and responsibilities under these circumstances attending the situation of capitular delegate were borne by Copernicus without a murmur for no less than three years.
Scarcely had he been restored to his ordinary position in the Chapter, when war broke out in real earnest. On New Year's Day, 1520, Margrave Albert spread consternation through the diocese by seizing the important town of Braunsberg. Bishop Fabian attempted to negotiate, and it is probable, though not certain, that Copernicus was one of his envoys. But no tolerable terms could be obtained, and things had to be left to pursue their disastrous course. From its vicinity to the captured town, where a large body of Teutonic troops were maintained, Frauenburg was regarded as a highly unsafe residence, and most of the canons sought a refuge in Dantzic, Elbing, or Allenstein. Copernicus nevertheless refused to quit his tower and terrace, but calmly continued his planetary observations in the midst of disquietudes of the most urgent kind. Danger, indeed, at one moment had almost yielded its place to disaster. Loudly boasting of his intention to ravage the ecclesiastical ' nest,' the Teutonic commander at Braunsberg led a party to Frauenburg with a view to its realisation. Fortunately, however, the coup de main failed ; the treasures of the 'curia Copernicana ' were preserved to posterity ; and Friedrich von Heideck was forced to content himself with working more facile mischief on farms and country-houses.
