one of his courtiers had understood from Tycho's uncle, Sten Bille, that Tycho was thinking of returning to Germany, and asked him whether he had perhaps refused to accept a royal castle because he feared to be disturbed in his studies by affairs of court and state. The king next told him how he had lately been at Elsinore, where he was building the castle of Kronborg, and that his eye had fallen on the little island of Hveen, situated in the Sound, between Elsinore and Landskrona in Scania, and that it had occurred to him that this lonely little spot, which had not been granted in fee to any nobleman, might be a suitable residence for the astronomer, where he might live perfectly undisturbed; adding, that he believed he had heard from Sten Bille before Tycho went to Germany that he liked the situation. The king offered him the island and promised to supply him with means to build a house there. He finally told Tycho to think the matter over for a few days, and give his final answer at the castle of Frederiksborg; if he accepted the offer, the king would immediately give the necessary orders for payment of a sum of money for the building.
Having returned home, Tycho at once wrote a long letter to his friend Pratensis, telling him in detail all that had happened, and confessing his former intention of leaving Denmark. He asked Pratensis to show the letter only to Dancey, and requested them both to advise him in the matter.[1] They both strongly urged him to accept the king's offer, which he accordingly did, and already on the 18th of February the king by letter granted Tycho "five hundred good old daler" annually until further orders.[2]
- ↑ T. B. et Doct. Vir. Epist., p. 21 et seq. In the letter of February 14, Tycho asks Pratensis to tear up or burn the letter as soon as Dancey had seen it, and in his reply next day, Pratensis writes that he had destroyed it. Tycho must therefore have kept a copy.
- ↑ About £114, but of course this represented at that time a much greater sum. In Denmark the first Joachimsthaler had been coined in 1523, exactly of the same value as those first issued in North Germany in 1519, which value
