66 Wallenstein
involving two letters), together with one briefer item. There are also the
dealings with Kepler over Wallenstein’s horoscope in 1608 and 1624-25,
which were carried out by Taxis on his behalf, and four later letters
from Kepler and others which were clearly responding to astrological
enquiries from Wallenstein. A letter from one of his officials to another
mentions Wallenstein being closeted with Senno during the night hours
in December 1631 ‘in order to decipher the secrets of the heavens’,
although the German grammatical construction indicates that this was
a hearsay report and not the writer’s own knowledge. Finally another
official noted in December 1632 that Wallenstein had graciously taken
in Duke Heinrich Julius of Saxe-Lauenburg’s mathematician, possibly as
a refugee from the war.^27
These limited sources are enough to establish that Wallenstein did
maintain his interest in astrology, and that he had sufficient personal
knowledge to be able to employ the relevant terminology in his cor-
respondence, but they do not suggest that this went beyond what
most contemporaries would have considered as normal. He was also
far from the only prince who retained an astrologer, others including
the Heinrich Julius mentioned above, as well as the emperor’s brother,
Archduke Leopold, despite the fact that he was the Catholic bishop
of Passau and Strasbourg.^28 Nor should it be forgotten that Kepler
remained in the emperor’s own service until 1628, and indeed thereaf-
ter as he retained his Imperial appointment, despite it being common
knowledge that he was actively engaged in astrology as well as being a
mathematician and astronomer.
Wallenstein’s horoscope has attracted considerable attention from
modern biographers but it is unlikely that it was known to contempo-
raries, as it would certainly have been mentioned in the early histories
by Priorato and Khevenhüller. Both made much of Wallenstein’s links
with astrology, but the horoscope itself was not discovered and pub-
lished until 1852. A public connection between Wallenstein and astrol-
ogy was probably first established when Kepler went to Sagan in 1628,
and it started to feature in the attacks of his enemies at around that time.
Later in his life it was certainly common knowledge and camp gossip,
as reported by Sydnam Poyntz, who joined Wallenstein’s army in 1632
and noted in his memoirs: ‘There was an Astrologer in his Court named
Signor John Baptista Leni [Seni] a Genoway much esteemed to whome
he gave 2000 Rix Dollers for annuall entertaynement and the freedome
of the Table of the greatest Cavaliers of his Court.’^29 This and other
contemporary observations were relatively matter of fact about the sub-
ject, whereas Wallenstein’s political opponents set out to characterise