some great potentate. In his letter to the king the Duke merely asked his grandson not to allow Tycho's work to be interrupted, as it did great credit to the late king and the country, and was renowned among all nations.[1]
While Tycho Brahe was still at Rostock awaiting the result of his own and the Duke's letters to the king, he occupied himself in investing the ready money which he had brought with him from Denmark. As he repeatedly states that he had been obliged to part with his hereditary estate on account of the great outlay on buildings and instruments, which all his endowments did not cover, it would almost seem certain that his aunt and foster-mother, Inger Oxe, who died in 1591, must have left him a very considerable sum of money.[2] He found a very convenient way of investing his money, as the Dukes Ulrich and Sigismund August, as guardians of the young Dukes Adolph Friedrich I. and Johann Albrecht II. of Mecklenburg, happened to require money, and were willing to borrow from Tycho. In the summer of 1597 they opened negotiations with him for the loan of 10,000 "harte Reichsthaler" (i.e. of full value, not clipped). As a prudent man, Tycho wanted proper security, and demanded a bond, by which ten well-known men should declare themselves and their heirs bound to him in the sum of 10,000 thaler; but as it was not customary in Mecklenburg for sureties to bind their heirs, he had to give up that point. As it took time to procure the consent and the signatures of the sureties, Brahe agreed to pay the money on receiving a temporary receipt from the two ducal guardians, and a mortgage on the county of Doberan; but when this was settled and two officials came
- ↑ These letters are printed in the Danske Magazin, ii. pp. 330–336 (Weistritz, ii. p. 323 et seq.).
- ↑ Several letters between Tycho and his kinsman Eske Bille (from the years 1599–1600) seem to show that Tycho had some dispute with several other heirs of his aunt. See Breve og Aktstykker, pp. 49 and 99.
