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72 the year 1566 began to be punished if they commenced living together before the wedding, and an ordinance of 1582 declares that a formal betrothal before a minister and witnesses shall precede a wedding, it was not yet expressly ordered that a Church ceremony was the only way of legalising a marriage, and, in fact, this was not done till a hundred years later. Tycho Brahe lived just at a time when the law of the land was still formally unaltered, and it is therefore intelligible how his children might be considered legitimate, and the companion of his life have been looked upon as his lawful wife. Doubtless the only fault anybody had to find with her was her low origin, and if she had been his equal in rank nobody would have thought that she was anything but his wife.

Tycho's eldest child, a daughter of the name of Christine, was born in October 1573, but died in September 1576. His other children were Magdalene (born in 1574), Claudius (born in January 1577, died six days after), Tyge (born in August 1581), Jörgen (born 1583), and three other daughters, Elizabeth, Sophia, and Cecily, as to the dates of whose birth nothing is known.

The ague seems to have left Tycho in August 1573, as