panied Tycho was a young Westphalian gentleman, Franz Gansneb Tengnagel von Camp, who had been with him at Hveen since 1595, and who afterwards became his son-in-law.
At Rostock Tycho had still friends from former days, though his correspondent Brucæus had died four years previously. But Chytræus was still alive, and on the 16th June he wrote a friendly letter, regretting that the state of his health prevented him from paying his respects to Tycho.[1] But the exiled astronomer found that though he was at once welcomed to Germany, he had not improved his position in Denmark, for immediately after his departure, on the 10th June, he was deprived of the prebend of Roskilde, which was conferred on the Chancellor, Friis, although the latter already enjoyed the best prebend in the chapter, and though the rules were that nobody could hold more than one prebend in any cathedral, that they were tenable for lifetime, and that the heirs of a prebendary should enjoy annum gratiæ after his death.[2] But here it must in fairness to the Government be recollected that Tycho had for years showed the most complete disregard of his obligations as a Prebendary, and that he had apparently left the country for ever in order to obtain employment abroad wherever he could get it. There was, therefore, some excuse for depriving him of this lucrative sinecure; but it certainly, on the other hand, seems to point to Friis as an enemy of Tycho's, since he made this an occasion for feathering his own nest.
When Tycho Brahe had been about a month at Rostock, he took a step which he probably ought to have taken long
- ↑ Letter in Danske Magazin, ii. p. 325 (Weistritz, ii. p. 318).
- ↑ Ibid., p. 325. That Friis already had another prebend is stated by Tycho himself, ibid., p. 348 (Weistritz, ii. p. 346). Tycho says (Hist. Coel., p. 802, that he was "vix e patria egressus" when this happened. He must, therefore, have left Copenhagen between the 1st and 10th June.
