Page:Tycho brahe.djvu/274

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250
TYCHO BRAHE.

appear before us at the castle. And although you do not blush to make your excuse for this in a manner as if you were our equal, we desire in this letter to let you know that we are aware of that, and that we expect from this day to be respected by you in a different manner, if you are to find in us a gracious lord and king. As regards your not doubting that we are aware that you have lost some fiefs you had held, and your thinking that it happened through no fault or error of yours; you remember well what complaints our poor subjects and peasants at Hveen have had against you, how you have acted about the church there, of which you for some years took the income and tithes and did not appoint any churchwarden, but let it stand ruinous; also took the land from the parsonage; and partly pulled down the houses, and the parson who should live there and use the land to keep himself and his wife, him you have given some pennies per week and fed him with your labourers, so that there have been during some years many parsons, who yet did not receive a call from the congregation in accordance with the ordinance, nor were lawfully dispossessed. In what way the words of baptism for a length of time have been omitted, against the established usage of these kingdoms, with your cognisance, is too well known to everybody. Which things, as well as others, which have occurred on that poor and small land, and were known to us for a good while before it became publicly known, have caused us to grant our tenants and the crown's in fief to others who would keep them under the law, right, and established custom.[1] With regard to your not being wealthy enough to promote the astronomical art by your own means, but sold your hereditary estate

  1. This refers to the fief of Nordfjord and the estate of the Roskilde prebend. The Island of Hveen could not be taken from him as he had got it for life, and we shall see that Tycho continued to keep a steward there, and received rent and produce from the island.