12 JEROME CARDAN. 



Church, it was not likely that his patronage would be 

 desired by any but a bold man who was not afraid of 

 venturing upon complicity with heretics. Christian's 

 accession having been heartily opposed by the bishops, 

 and the beginning of his reign having been much con- 

 fused with civil war, his majesty, when he had been three 

 years upon the throne, in defiance of his pledged faith, 

 seized by force every bishop in his dominions, and 

 abolished totally the Roman Catholic form of worship. 

 The bishops after a time were liberated, on condition that 

 they would submit to the new order of things. One 

 only preferred to die in prison. This act of perfidy or 

 piety had been committed about ten years before Christian 

 wished for an Italian physician to his household. His 

 dominions during his reign had been at no time free 

 from intestine strife ; and though he had been so good as 

 to assassinate Danish Catholicism, he had not proved an 

 enlightened ruler. He had bribed his nobles by securing 

 to them every just and unjust privilege; and among 

 others, power of life and death over their vassals. All 

 that he had done the public only dimly knew in Italy, 

 for news from Denmark must have found its way only in 

 the shape of strange rumours and legends to the people of 

 the south of Europe, at a time when it was not even easy 

 for a man in Milan to know accurately what was being 

 done in Venice. 



