of their daughter and King Christian at Haderslev in Slesvig, on the 27th November. On the 22nd December Tycho handed the Margrave a letter in which he expressed his regret to find that the king was displeased with him for leaving Denmark, though any one might know that he would not without cause have left his home with wife and children, and at the age of fifty. But as it perhaps had been so ordained by God, he was content, and had no wish to be reinstated, and even if that should be done, he would be very unwilling to live any longer at Hveen, and always to stay there.[1] But he would ask the Margrave to write to the king that he would, though abroad, continue to do all he could for the honour of his country, and it might perhaps elsewhere be done as well, if not better, and much more conveniently and quietly than in Denmark. If the king would carry out his father's intention, and would permanently endow Uraniborg, Tycho would see that the work should be carried on well, if not by himself, at least by one of his [family], and he would let the four great instruments remain there, and supply others as well. In that case he hoped the king would endow the observatory with canonries in accordance with the promise of the Government during the interregnum. But if the king did not desire to keep up the observatory, he hoped he might remove the four instruments, and that he might receive some compensation for all the trouble and expense he had gone to.[2]
With this letter has been preserved another memorandum of Tycho's reasons for going abroad, which he doubtless
- ↑ "Dan ich darum keinen Verlangen trage, nunmehr vor mein Person in Dennemarck zu sein und gerestituiret zu werden, und wan das schon geshehen solte, so ist es mir doch sehr ungelegen auf der Insel Huen lenger zu wohnen, und stets zu bleiben, wovon ich an einem anderen Ort meine Ursachen verzeichnet habe." I believe there is not any document extant in which these reasons for not living at Hveen are stated.
- ↑ Danske Magazin, ii. pp. 342–344 (Weistritz. ii. p. 336 et seq.).
