How Tycho Brahe Got an Island.

In this series:

• Becoming Tycho Brahe.
• Edward de Vere, Shakespeare and Tycho Brahe.
• How Tycho Brahe Got an Island.
• Uraniborg: Tycho Brahe’s Cosmic Castle.
• King James VI’s visit with Tycho Brahe at Hveen.
• Tycho Brahe’s Frenemy, Johannes Kepler. (Pending)

When Tycho Brahe first saw the 1572 supernova in his night sky he was an astronomer moderately well-known for reputed feats of astrology and for building large observational instruments. Beginning fitfully, in 1568, he himself had been looking through those instruments, on nights when circumstances allowed, and carefully recording the positions of the stars and planets he observed.  

A lack of dependable astronomical tables (a.k.a. ephemerides) was beginning to be a problem.  In part, because they were needed in order to precisely cast the horoscopes that made Tycho and other practitioners most of their reputation. 

But it was also beginning to dawn on those practitioners that Copernicus had changed our relationship to the heavens.  In order to understand that change ever greater precision was necessary.  Patrons wanted as much to be known to have underwritten verifiable theories regarding the nature of the planets and stars.  They wanted to keep time more precisely, to calculate the trajectory of projectiles,… and, yes, to read God’s messages in the sky.

Brahe’s math and mechanical skills being less than exemplary, he increased the precision of his instruments — quadrants, at  first — by making them large enough to accommodate scales with graduations displaying fractional minutes of arc. The greater the precision sought the larger the instrument had to be. Until he had tediously recorded the positions of the objects in the heavens filling folio after folio for decades, he was best known for these precise giants he created and the quality of his observations upon the supernova.

When Brahe was encouraged by his friends and associates to publish a book on the November 1572 supernova for which he is now famous, his answer belonged to his times.  It was below the dignity of a nobleman to publish books.[1]  He was also well aware that specialized texts did not always fare well in the press.

His friends succeeded, however.  He had made the most accurate instruments of the time and could do parallax measurements that made clear that the supernova resided beyond the Solar System in the region of the fixed stars.  The fact that so much had been issued throughout Europe about the star that was utterly inaccurate encouraged him to set matters right.  He even allowed his name to appear on the titles page.  A tiny print run was issued in late 1573.

 

After seeing the book  through the press, in Copenhagen,[2] he did what he enjoyed doing.  He traveled visiting universities and astronomers.  This time giving them copies of his book.  He was doing an early form of a book tour.  As part of his tour, he traveled to the great book fair at Frankfurt-on-Main.

In late 1575, the King of Denmark offered Brahe a small island, near the royal castle of Elsinor, hoping that the privacy and independence might attract him.  It was to come with a promise to build necessary buildings to the astronomer’s specifications and with a healthy allowance. 

The specific island the King was offering was the little island of Hveen, near the royal palace of Elsinor. Brahe visited the island, on February 22, 1576, like any other home buyer checking out the kitchen, the plumbing, the neighborhood, etc. He must have found it acceptable as the following Royal proclamation was published on May 23, 1576.

We, Frederick the Second, &c., make known to all men, that we of our special favour and grace have conferred and granted in fee, and now by this our open letter confer and grant in fee, to our beloved Tyge Brahe, Otte's son, of Knudstrup, our man and servant, our land of Hveen, with all our and the crown's tenants and servants who thereon live, with all rent and duty which comes from that, and is given to us and to the crown, to have, enjoy, use and hold, quit and free, without any rent, all the days of his life, and as long as he lives and likes to continue and follow his studia mathematices, but so that he shall keep the tenants who live there under law and right, and injure none of them against the law or by any new impost or other unusual tax, and in all ways be faithful to us and the kingdom, and attend to our welfare in every way and guard against and prevent danger and injury to the kingdom. Actum Frederiksborg the 23rd day of May, anno 1576.[3]

For his part, Brahe “the same [February] evening took his first observation there of a conjunction of Mars and the moon.”[4]  This, presumably, by way of marking his territory.

King Frederick was prescient to include the protections for the tenants who lived in the tiny town called Tuna or “the toun”.[5] Brahe was a proud man of minor noble stock and abrasive toward commoners who he felt didn’t know their place. The twenty years that lay ahead would be punctuated by conflict between them.

The map of the island of Hveen (“Insula Hvaena”) that forms the left-hand panel of the illustration that leads this essay is getting ahead of our story. Willem Janszoon Blaeu, a young student from Holland, traveled to the island to volunteer as an assistant to the famous astronomer. He left to return to his homeland on May 21, 1596,[6] which is the only specific date we know regarding his stay which is said to have come to a total of some two years. During his stay he drew a map of the island and pictures of Brahe’s castle and many of Brahe’s instruments within.

Willem went on to become a famous publisher, mathematician and cartographer. His son continued the publishing business, after his father’s death. Atlases having become highly popular, he gathered his father’s maps and those of others together in Le Grande Atlas published in 12 volumes between 1662 and 1665. It is in the first volume that the Willem’s map of Hveen appears.

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[1] Dreyer, A. L. E. Tycho Brahe: A Picture of Scientific Life and Work in the Sixteenth Century (1890), 43.  Brahe, Tycho.  Astronomiae instauratae progymnasmata (1610), 579.

[2] Known, in Latin, as “Hafnia”.

[3] Dreyer, 86-7.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid., 89.

[6] Stevenson, Edward Luther. Willem Janszoon Blaeu 1571-1638. A Sketch of his Life and Work… (1914). 13.

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• The un-Bad Quarto of Shakespeare’s Henry V. May 14, 2022. “The speaker of the famous epilogue at  the end of Shakespeare’s 2 Henry IV asks the listeners’ patience.”
• The Death of Sir Edward Vere, son of the 17th Earl of Oxford and Anne Vavasour. May 8, 2022. “Mr. Sedgwick wrote to me for a prayer for Sir Edward Vere.”
• How Shakespeare gave Ben Jonson the Infamous Purge. November 7, 2021. “Of course, De Vere could not openly accuse Jonson of having outed him as Shakespeare.”
• A 1572 Oxford Letter and the Player’s Speech in Hamlet. August 11, 2020. “The player’s speech has been a source of consternation among Shakespeare scholars for above 200 years.  Why was Aeneas’ tale chosen as the subject?”
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
• Check out the Letters Index: Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford for many letters from this fascinating time, some related to the Shakespeare Authorship Question.