In the Service of the Lord
Christian Martin (1761 – 1835)
Christian Martin Hudtwalcker, b. Hamburg 15 October 1761 d. Itzehoe September 1835,1 was the 9th child and 4th son to Jacob Hinrich Hudtwalcker (1710 – 1781) in his marriage with Sarah Elisabeth Hudtwalcker née Ehlers (1728 – 1799).
While his older brother, the Senator Johann Michael Hudtwalcker (1747 – 1818), continued in his father’s footsteps and continued to run the family company Hudtwalcker & Co., Christian Martin was to walk down a different path. During his educational years, he had a higher calling than to be a merchant of Fish Oils, and instead chose to dedicate his life in the service of the Lord.
After completing his theological studies at the age of 25 in 1786 he became pastor in Malente.2 The same year he married his first wife, Susanna Carolina Winckler and three years later in 1789, the year he turned 28, he was appointed pastor in Neukirchen.3 A couple of years later in 1791 his wife gave birth to the their first child, Carl Jacob.
Through his engaging sermons and religious writing, Christian Martin soon became a well known and respected preacher. In the wake of his increased reputation, which reached far beyond the parish of Neukirchen, he was, in 1801, at the age of 40, promoted to Senior Pastor and German garrison preacher at the Church of the Lord Zebaoth4 in Copenhagen, Denmark. 1801 was also the year the couple’s second child, Susanne Elisabeth, was born. Around this time Christian Martin was also active as tutor for his nephew, Martin Hieronymus Hudtwalcker (1787 – 1865).
However, during the British bombardement and siege of Copenhagen5 in 1807, Christian Martin attracted the anger of the Danish Crown Prince, and future King, Frederick VI.6 Due to the pleading of the defending soldiers families and relations, Christian Martin spoke in favour of surrendering the fortress to the attacking British forces. The Crown Prince would have nothing of it, and is said to have remarked: ”He might be a fine vicar, but he is not cut out to defend a fortress”.
Consequently, in the ensuing year, when Frederick VI was crowned King of Denark in 1808, the year Christian Martin entered into his 2nd marriage with Johanna Gerhardine Caroline von Haffner, his position in Copenhagen became untenable. On top of these difficulties, his daughter, Susanne Elisabeth, died on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1808, aged just seven years.
In 1809, the respectable position as pastor in Neuenbrook7 in the district of Steinburg, then a part of Denmark, became vacant. Christian Martin applied and was appointed, and in 1810 he moved, together with his family, to Neuenbrook. The same year his 2nd wife, Johanna Gerhardine Caroline, gave birth to Susanne Christiane Gerhardine. Although she was their first child, she was his 3rd child and his 2nd daughter.
In Neuenbrook he soon became a well-known and highly appreciated representative of the spiritual office. Life in Neuendorf proved to be a period of recuperation after the troublesome years in Copenhagen. In 1809, his 4th child and 3rd daughter, Gerhardine Wilhelmine, was born. The year 1812, however, was again a year of mourning. His only son, and oldest child, Carl Jacob, who was a medical doctor and surgeon with the Imperial Russian Army in St. Petersburg, died on 12 November 1812.
In 1814 when he was 53 years old the Danish King’s anger at Christian Martin’s humanitarian inclined outspokennesss on behalf of the soldiers’ families in 1807, finally seems to have abated. Christian Martin was elected Senior and monastery preacher in Itzehoe. Not only was the step confirmed by Frederrick VI, but shortly thereafter Christian Martin was additionally nominated to the honourable position as Consistorial Counsellor in the Royal Danish Consistory, and furthermore appointed Provost of the Provostry of Münsterdorf.8 With its 22 parishes, the municipality of Münsterdorf was the largest provostry in the Duchy of Holstein.9
Christian Martin was to carry on his duties as Consistorial Counsellor for more than 20 years. The post had been severely mismanaged under his predecessor. Not only were the coffers empty, the Consistory was also heavily indebted. After laying dormant for the most part of his life, the drop of merchant’s blood inherited from his father, Jacob Hinrich, finally became useful. The Consistory’s finances were restored and at the end of his tenure the finances were in such good shape that a significant amount could proudly be passed on to his successor.
This considerable achievement did not pass by unrewarded. On 1 November 1828, Christian Martin, now 67 years old, was made Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog.10 A perhaps final and confirming sign of reconciliation with King Frederick VI took place on 23 June 1833, when the King, during a stay in Itzehoe, was present at one of Christian Martin’s sermons.
Half a year earlier, in Christmas 1832, his second wife, Johanna Gerhardine Caroline, suddenly passed away. They had married in 1808, the same year his second child, Susanne Elisabeth, had died.
Their marriage had lasted for nearly a quarter of a century, and she had stood faithfully at his side through trials and success. Her death was a heavy blow. Christian Martin was in his 71st year, and from now on his energy and strength slowly but surely declined. For many years he had already suffered from an incurable disease, and although the pains could be very violent, he had always somehow managed to hold his spirit high. But after the loss of Johanna Gerhardine he slowly started to wither away. He could no longer perform all of the sermons, and had to let others step in on his behalf. During the last months of his life, in the summer of 1835, when he was too ill to leave his house, an unexpected visit by the Prince Friedrich von Hessen, the present County Count and Govenor of the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein, brought him a last, great pleasure.
Five weeks before his 74th birthday, in the early morning of 8 September 1835, after 49 years in the service of the Lord, Christian Martin died.
Parents
Jacob Hinrich Hudtwalcker (b. 20 November 1710 – d. 28 October 1781)
Sarah Elisabeth Hudtwalcker née Ehlers (b. 2 April 1728 – d. 26 April 1799)
Siblings
Johann Michael Hudtwalcker (b. 21 September 1747 – d. 14 December 1818)
Margaretha Elisabeth Hudtwalcker (b. 2 October 1748 – d. 20 October 1794)
Sara Elisabeth Hudtwalcker (b. 12 March 1750 – d. 22 May 1819)
Catharina Magdalena Hudtwalcker (b. 14 November 1751/52 – d. 8 March 1806)
Jacob Hinrich Hudtwalcker (b. 28 June 1753 – d. 7 April 1799)
Johanna Margareta Hudtwalcker (b. 15 January 1756 – d. 22 May 1785)
Nicolaus Hudtwalcker (b. 3 May 1757 – d. 25 January 1832)
Caecilia Hudtwalcker (b. 28 January 1759 – d. 29 June 1765)
Daniel Conrad Hudtwalcker (b. 3 September 1765 – d. 25 June 1796)
Spouses
1st marriage in 1786:
Susanna Carolina Winckler (dates of birth and death unknown)
2nd marriage in 1808:
Johanna Gerhardine Caroline von Haffner (date of birth unknown – d. 1832)
Children
1st marriage:
Carl Jacob Hudtwalcker (b. 19 August 1791 – d. 14 November 1812, St. Petersburg, Russia)
Susanne Elisabeth Hudtwalcker (b. 26 September 1801 – d. 24 December 1808)
2nd marriage:
Susanne Christiane Gerhardine Hudtwalcker (b. 10 June 1809)
Gerhardine Wilhelmine Hudtwalcker (b. 27 March 1811)
Awards
Knight of The Order of the Dannebrog, 1828
Religious Writings
Anleitung zu einer vernünftigen Andacht beim Genusse des heiligen Abendmals: für den Bürger und Landmann. 1793
Predigten und Casual-Reden. 1800
Vier Predigten und zwey Taufreden. 1800
Predigten. 1805
Sources
Christian Martin Hudtwalcker, in: Neuer Nekrolog der Deutschen
13/2 (1835) Weimar: Voigt 1837, S. 746-748 (Nr. 221)
wikipedia.org
Appreciation
We appreciate the kind assistance of Mr. Simon Kennerley, noble Bard and Commander of the Yorkshire Irregulars.
Notes
- Itzehoe is a town in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, about 51 km northwest of Hamburg. Itzehoe is the oldest town in Holstein. Its nucleus was a castle, built in 809 by Egbert, one of Charlemagne‘s counts, against the Danes. The community that sprang up around it was variously called Esseveldoburg, Eselsfleth and Ezeho. In 1201 the town was destroyed, but it was restored in 1224. The new town was granted the Lübeck rights by Adolphus IV in 1238, and the old town in 1303. During the Thirty Years’ War Itzehoe was twice destroyed by the Swedes, in 1644 and 1657, but was rebuilt on each occasion. It passed to Prussia in 1867, with the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein. Germany’s lowest elevation is to be found a short distance from Itzehoe, in the Wilstermarsch, (The Captain in the Mists of Time) which reaches 3.54 m below sea level.
- Malente is a municipality in the district of Ostholstein, in Schleswig-Holstein. It is about 5 km northwest of Eutin and 35 km north of Lübeck.
- Neukirchen is a municipality in the district of Ostholstein, in Schleswig-Holstein.
- Zebaoth is the feminine plural of Zaba (host, army), e.g. Exod. 6:26; 12:17, 51; I Sam. 17:45.
As such He is the Leader of the hosts of the stars and sun systems (Isa.40:26;45:12; Judges 5:20; Job 38:7), the chief Marshal of the angelic world (I Kings 22:19; II Kings 6:17; Josh.5:13-15; Neh.9:6; Psa.103:21; 148:2) and the Commander of His warriors here below on earth (I Sam.17:45; Num. 10:36). As Jehovah-Zebaoth He commands all His hosts, so as to lead His people to triumph and His kingdom to its perfection.
This is also the reason why in the period after the Babylonian captivity the name ‘Lord of Hosts’ became the chief Divine name. It is used by Jeremiah 80 times, by Haggai 14 times, by Zechariah 50 times, and by Malachi 24 times. For to the small and feeble remnant, born in deep distress, who had returned from captivity, the acknowledgment of God as ‘Jehovah-Zebaoth’ was a comfort affording assurance that the Lord, the invisible Commander of the powers of heaven, would bring His cause to victory and His people to the goal. Therefore also in the New Testament the Greek translation of this name of God (pantokrator, All-ruler), occur in the revelation (nine times, 1:8;4:8;11:17;15:3;16:7,14;19:6,15;21:22), the very book in which is described the greatest distress of the people of God in the conflict with the power of the world, but also the decis ive blow against the anti-Christian host and the brilliant victory of the redeemed people of God.
Therefore ‘Lord of Hosts’ is His mightiest name, the most comprehensive expression of His world-wide power and the most exalted royal name of the Highest. ‘Open wide the gate way, and make high the doors of the world, that the king of glory may enter. Who is this King of glory? He is the Lord Zebaoth! He is the King of glory! (Psa.24:9,10).
- The Second Battle of Copenhagen (or the Bombardment of
Copenhagen) (16 August – 5 September 1807) was a British bombardment of Copenhagen in order to seize the Dano-Norwegian fleet, during the Napoleonic Wars.
Despite the defeat and loss of many ships in the first Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, Denmark-Norway, possessing Schleswig-Holstein and Iceland, still maintained a considerable navy. The majority of the Danish army under the Crown Prince was at this time defending the southern border against possible attack from the French.
There was concern in Britain that Napoleon might try to force Denmark to close the Baltic Sea to British ships, perhaps by marching French troops into Zealand. The British believed that access to the Baltic was “vitally important to Britain” for trade as well as a major source of necessary raw materials for building and maintaining warships, and that it gave the Royal Navy access to help Britain’s allies Sweden and (before Tilsit) Russia against France. The British thought that after Prussia had been defeated in December 1806, Denmark’s independence looked increasingly under threat from France. George Canning‘s predecessor as Foreign Secretary, Lord Howick, had tried unsuccessfully to persuade Denmark into a secret alliance with Britain and Sweden.
The reports of French diplomats and merchants in northern Europe made the British government feel uneasy and by mid-July the British believed that the French intended to invade Holstein in order to use Denmark against Britain. Some reports suggested that the Danes had secretly agreed to this. The Cabinet decided to act and on 14 July Lord Mulgrave obtained from the King permission to send a naval force of 21 to 22 ships to the Kattegat for surveillance of the Danish navy in order to pursue “prompt and vigorous operations” if that seemed necessary. The Cabinet decided on 18 July to send Francis Jackson on a secret mission to Copenhagen to persuade Denmark to give its fleet to Britain. That same day the Admiralty issued an order for more than 50 ships to sail for “particular service” under Admiral James Gambier. On 19 July Lord Castlereagh, the Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, ordered General Lord Cathcart at Stralsund to go with his troops to the Sound where they would get reinforcements.
In January 1808 Lord Hawkesbury told the House of Lords that he received information from someone on the Continent “that there were secret engagements in the Treaty of Tilsit to employ the navies of Denmark and Portugal against this country”. He refused to publish the source because he said it would endanger their lives. During the night of 21/22 July Canning received intelligence from Tilsit that Napoleon had tried to persuade Alexander I of Russia to form a maritime league with Denmark and Portugal against Britain. Spencer Perceval, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, wrote a memorandum setting out the government’s case for sending forces to Copenhagen: “The intelligence from so many and such various sources” that Napoleon’s intent was to force Denmark into war against Britain could not be doubted. “Nay, the fact that he has openly avowed such intention in an interview with the Emperor of Russia is brought to this country in such a way as it cannot be doubted. Under such circumstances it would be madness, it would be idiotic… to wait for an overt act”.
The British assembled a force of 25,000 troops, and the vanguard sailed on 30 July; Jackson set out the next day. Canning offered Denmark a treaty of alliance and mutual defence, with a convention signed for the return of the fleet after the war, the protection of 21 British warships and a subsidy for how many soldiers Denmark kept standing. On 31 July Napoleon ordered Talleyrand to tell Denmark to prepare for war against Britain or else Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte would invade Holstein.Neither Talleyrand nor Jackson persuaded the Danes to end their neutrality so Jackson went back to the British fleet assembled in the Sound on 15 August. The British published a proclamation demanding the deposit of the Danish fleet; the Danes responded with “what amounted to a declaration of war”
On 12 August the 32-gun Danish frigate Frederiksværn sailed for Norway from Elsinor and Admiral Lord Gambier sent the 74-gun third rate Defence and the 22 gun sixth rate Comus after her, even though war had not yet been declared.Comus was much faster than Defence in the light winds and so outdistanced her. On 15 August 1807 Comus caught Frederiksværn off
Marstrand and captured her.The British took her into service as Frederikscoarn.
British troops commanded by General Wellesley defeated a Danish force of militia in the Battle of Køge, south of Copenhagen. Most of the civilian inhabitants of Copenhagen were evacuated in the few days before Copenhagen was completely invested. The British forces included a Hanoverian force (the King’s German Legion), under General Lord Cathcart.
The Danes rejected British demands, so the British fleet under Admiral Gambier bombarded the city from 2 to 5 September 1807. In addition to the military casualties, the British bombardment of Copenhagen killed some 195 civilians and injured 768.
Bombardment of Copenhagen, night of 4 September 1807 The bombardment had included Congreve Rockets, which caused fires. Due to the civilian evacuation, the normal firefighting arrangements were ineffective; over a thousand buildings were burned.
On 5 September the Danes sued for peace and the capitulation was signed on 7 September. Denmark agreed to surrender its navy and its naval stores. In return the British undertook to leave Copenhagen within six weeks.
Peymann had been under orders from the Crown Prince to burn the Danish fleet,which he failed to do, though the reason for his failure to do so is unknown.
Thus, on 7 September 1807 Peymann surrendered the fleet (eighteen ships of the line, eleven frigates, two smaller ships, two ship-sloops, seven brig-sloops, two brigs, one schooner and twenty-six gunboats). In addition, the British broke up or destroyed three 74-gun ships-of-the-line on the stocks, along with two of the aforementioned ships-of-the-fleet and two elderly frigates.
After her capture, one ex-Danish ship-of-the-line, Neptunos, ran aground and was burnt on or near the island of Hven. Then, when a storm arose in the Kattegat, the British destroyed or abandoned twenty-three of the captured gunboats. The British added the fifteen captured ships-of-the-line that reached Britain to the British Navy but only four — Christian VII 80, Dannemark 74, Norge 74 and Princess Carolina 74 — saw subsequent active service.
On 21 October 1807, the British fleet left Copenhagen for the United Kingdom. However, the war continued until 1814, when the Treaty of Kiel was signed.
- Frederick
VI (28 January 1768 – 3 December 1839) was King of Denmark from 13
March 1808 to 3 December 1839 and King of Norway from 13
March 1808 to 7 February 1814. From 1784 until his accession, he served as regent during his
father’s mental illness and was referred to as the “Crown Prince
Regent”. Frederick belonged to the House of Oldenburg and was
the only son of Christian VII and Caroline
Matilda of Great Britain.
Frederick VI (1768 – 1839) For his motto he chose: God and the just cause and since the time of his reign, Danish monarchs have only used mottos in the Danish language instead of the usual Latin. The Royal Frederick University in Oslo was named in his honour.
- Neuenbrook: A small municipality in Schleswig-Holstein, about 7 kilometers south of Itzehoe.
- Münsterdorf: A small municipality close to Itzehoe.
- Duchy of Holstein was the northernmost state of the Holy Roman
Empire, located in the present German state of Schleswig-Holstein. It was
established when King Christian I of Denmark had his
County of Holstein-Rendsburg elevated
to a duchy by Emperor
Frederick III in 1474.
Holstein was ruled jointly with the Duchy of Schleswig by members
of the Danish House of Oldenburg for its
entire existence.
The Duchy ceased to exist when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866 after the Second Schleswig War.
The northern border of Holstein along the Eider River had already formed the northern border of the Carolingian Empire, after Emperor Charlemagne upon the Saxon Wars reached an agreement with King Hemming of Denmark in 811. The lands of Schleswig beyond the river remained a fief of the Danish Crown, while Holstein became an integral part of East Francia, the Kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.
In 1713, the estates of the Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp in Schleswig including Schloss Gottorf were conquered by royal Danish troops in the course of the Great Northern War and in the 1720 Treaty of Frederiksborg, Duke Charles Frederick of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp had to cede them to his liege lord the Danish crown.
His remaining territories formed the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp administered from Kiel. In 1773, Charles Frederick’s grandson, Paul, Emperor of Russia finally gave his Holstein parts to the Danish king, in his function as duke of Holstein, in exchange for the County of Oldenburg and Holstein was reunited as a single state.
With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Duchy of Holstein gained sovereignty.
After the 1815 Congress of Vienna the Holstein duchy of the Danish crown became a member of the German Confederation, resulting in several diplomatic and military conflicts about the so-called Schleswig-Holstein Question. Denmark managed to defend its rule over Holstein in the First Schleswig War of 1848-51 against the Kingdom of Prussia, however when in the course of the 1864 Second Schleswig War Prussian and Austrian troops crossed the Eider and conquered Schleswig, Christian IX of Denmark had to renounce both Schleswig and Holstein in the 1864 Treaty of Vienna. Holstein was put under Austrian administration until in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War it was finally annexed by Prussia in 1866.
- The Order of the Dannebrog is an Order of Denmark, instituted in 1671 by Christian V. It resulted from a move in 1660 to break the absolutism of the nobility. Until 1808, membership in the order was limited to fifty members of noble or royal rank who formed a single class known as White Knights to distinguish them from the Blue Knights who were members of the Order of the Elephant.
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