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§§ 106, 107] their effect. In 1594 he lost one of his chief supporters at court, the Chancellor Kaas, and his successor, as well as two or three other important officials at court, were not very friendly, although the stories commonly told of violent personal animosities appear to have little foundation. As early as 1591 Tycho had hinted to a correspondent that he might not remain permanently in Denmark, and in 1594 he began a correspondence with representatives of the Emperor Rudolph II., who was a patron of science. But his scientific activity during these years was as great as ever; and in 1596 he completed the printing of an extremely interesting volume of scientific correspondence between the Landgrave, Rothmann, and himself. The accession of the young King to power in 1596 was at once followed by the withdrawal of one of Tycho's estates, and in the following year the annual payment which had been made since 1576 was stopped. It is difficult to blame the King for these economies; he was evidently not as much interested in astronomy as his father, and consequently regarded the heavy expenditure at Hveen as an extravagance, and it is also probable that he was seriously annoyed at Tycho's maltreatment of his tenants, and at other pieces of unruly conduct on his part. Tycho, however, regarded the forfeiture of his annual pension as the last straw, and left Hveen early in 1597, taking his more portable property with him. After a few months spent in Copenhagen, he took the decisive step of leaving Denmark for Germany, in return for which action the King deprived him of his canonry. Tycho thereupon wrote a remonstrance in which he pointed out the impossibility of carrying on his work without proper endowments, and offered to return if his services were properly appreciated. The King, however, was by this time seriously annoyed, and his reply was an enumeration of the various causes of complaint against Tycho which had arisen of late years. Although Tycho made some more attempts through various friends to regain royal favour, the breach remained final.

107. Tycho spent the winter 1597-8 with a friend near Hamburg, and, while there, issued, under the title of Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica, a description of his instruments, together with a short autobiography and an