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Rh a second and peremptory order to pay to the widow and the University what was due to them. Three years later Tycho thought that he saw a chance of making the heirs of Henrik Holk disgorge some of the money he had been obliged to let them have, for it appears that some repairs had to be made to the chapel, and that Tycho demanded payment for these from the heirs. But here again the king showed that, however favourably disposed he was to the renowned man of learning, he would have no injustice done to anybody; and in July 1582 he directed that the repairs were to be paid for out of public funds, but that in future Tycho, or whoever else might hold the prebend, was to pay for them. We shall afterwards see that the possession of this prebend gave rise to more serious troubles to Tycho Brahe.

It was mentioned above that Tycho obtained a grant of the Crown estate of Nordfjord on the west coast of Norway, to be held by him during the time that he was waiting for the vacancy in the prebend. But when he got possession of the latter, the king did not deprive him of the Nordfjord estate, but granted it to him again on the 13th June 1579, during pleasure, free of rent, and merely with the usual stipulation that he was to keep the tenants under the laws of Norway, and not injure any of them, nor was he to cut down any of the woods on the estate. This benefice may only have been intended to indemnify Tycho for the year of grace which he was to pay out of the Roskilde prebend, for on the 10th August 1580 the king's lieutenant at Bergen was ordered to receive the Nordfjord estate from Tycho Brahe, and in future to account to the king's exchequer for the income of the same. Tycho must, however, have persuaded the king that he could ill afford to lose this income, for already,