Catholic. The youngest daughter, Cecily, married a Swede, Baron Gustaff Sparre, colonel of a German regiment, and died at Krakau. In 1630 some of Tycho Brahe's nearest relations in Denmark, among whom was his sister Sophia, issued a declaration, stating that Christine, by the ancient laws of the kingdom, "on account of the open, unchanged, and honourable life of both of them, must be acknowledged as his wedded wife."[1]
Tengnagel very soon gave up the idea of working at the Rudolphine tables. He had probably only been a short time at Uraniborg (he is mentioned as an unpractised observer in September 1595), and there are no signs of his having occupied himself seriously with astronomy during Tycho's lifetime, so that probably it was only jealousy of Kepler which induced him to prevent the latter from taking up Tycho's work at once. He was in 1605, by the Emperor, made a Councillor of Appeal, and received a grant from the Benatky estate "for his astronomical observations," and he was also employed on various foreign embassies among others, to England, whither he was accompanied by Eriksen, who also gave up astronomy.[2] Tengnagel was appointed Councillor to Rudolph's cousin, Leopold, Bishop of Passau, and afterwards became a privy Councillor to Ferdinand II. He was the only one of the family who was allowed to remain in Bohemia after the battle of Prague (November 1620), when the Protestants were driven from the Austrian possessions. His wife, Elizabeth Brahe, had died in 1613, leaving several children. He died in 1622.
Notwithstanding his connection with the two Emperors, Tengnagel had been unable to get the purchase-money for the instruments paid in full. From a letter which Magdalene Brahe wrote to Eske Bille in July 1602 we learn that, although the Emperor soon after Tycho's death had agreed to purchase the instruments for 20,000 thaler, he was, as
- ↑ The document was written in German, so that the children of Tycho could make use of it in Bohemia and Saxony, where they all lived. Danske Magazin, ii. p. 367; Weistritz, ii. p 375. Sophia Brahe died in 1643 at the age of eighty-seven. She was the only one of Tycho's brothers and sisters on whom some of his glory was reflected, and when she, nine years before her death, at Elsinore, met a French embassy, the secretary, Charles Oger, in the description which he afterwards wrote of his journey, mentioned the meeting with her among the most remarkable events.
- ↑ Eriksen observed the solar eclipse of October 1605 in London, and brought letters backwards and forwards between Kepler and Harriot. He had early in 1602 (with Tengnagel) visited Fabricius in Ostfriesland, and afterwards for some time assisted Kepler (Opera, iii. 533, ii. 432).
