Page:Tycho brahe.djvu/133

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THE ISLAND OF HVEEN.
109

1578 he had also been granted the use of eleven farms in the county of Helsingborg, free of rent, to be held during the king's pleasure. These and the Kullen manor he lost again for a while in August 1580, probably because he had in the meantime been granted other sources of income; but he received them again in June of the following year, "to enjoy and keep, free of rent, as long as he shall continue to live at Hveen," with the repeated injunction to keep the light at Kullen in order. On the 27th October 1581 the customs officers at Elsinore were instructed, that whereas the light was in future to be kept burning in winter as well as in summer, they were out of the increased lighthouse fees received from navigators to pay Tycho Brahe 300 daler a year for the increase of trouble. This seems, however, to have been more than the additional fees amounted to, and on the 9th July 1582 the order about the 300 daler was cancelled by a royal decree, in which it was stated that Tycho was already in receipt of sufficient payment for keeping the lighthouse.[1] In 1584 the governor of Helsingborg Castle and the chief magistrate of Scania were ordered to proceed to Kullen, together with Tycho, to examine the lighthouse, which was said to be very dilapidated. The tower was ordered to be rebuilt in August 1585 at the public expense, and at the same time the indefatigable generosity of the king dictated a letter to the customs officers at Elsinore, commanding them until further orders to pay Tycho 200 dalers annually, in order that the light might be kept burning summer and winter as long as navigation lasted.[2]

We have seen that Tycho Brahe already in 1568 received the king's promise of the first vacant canonry in the cathedral of Roskilde. In 1578 this promise was more distinctly renewed, as by royal letter, dated Frederiksborg the 18th May, Tycho was appointed to succeed to the pre-

  1. Friis, Tyge Brahe, pp. 116-117.
  2. Ibid., p. 148.