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TYCHO BRAHE.

Chancellor could oblige him in any other way, he should be happy.[1]

It is very difficult to form an idea of the motives which dictated this changed behaviour of the king and the Government to the great astronomer, but there can hardly be any doubt that Tycho had made himself more than one enemy among the nobles, and these found in his own conduct faults enough which they could point out to the king, hinting that this self-willed man, who would hardly condescend to obey the royal authority, had been petted long enough, and that there was no necessity for continuing to spend great sums of money on his instruments, the more so as it could not be a secret that he was by no means devoid of pecuniary resources himself. When they had reminded the king of Tycho's persecution of the tenant near Roeskilde, of his having not only neglected to attend to his duty of keeping the chapel of his prebend in repair, but also turned a deaf ear to repeated injunctions about this matter, it was probably not difficult for his enemies to influence the young king. Who these enemies were is not known with absolute certainty. Tradition mentions among them the king's physician, Peder Sörensen, with whom Tycho had, about twenty years before, exchanged friendly letters, but who is said to have become jealous of Tycho's dabbling in medicine, and particularly of his having distributed remedies against various diseases without payment. But Tycho himself considered Christopher Valkendorf and Christian Friis as having been the principal instigators in the events which led to his expatriation; at least he did so some time afterwards, when he mentioned them as such in several letters.[2] As early as about fifty years after these

  1. The two letters are printed in Hofman's Portraits historiques des hommes illustres de Danemarc (1746), vi. pp. 14–16, and in Danske Magazin, ii. pp. 310–314 (Weistritz, ii. pp. 289–297).
  2. In a letter to Professor Grynæus at Basle, dated 8th October 1597, Tycho