Corfits Ulfeldt (naval officer)

Corfits Mogensen Ulfeldt (died 1644) was a Danish naval officer, a cousin of the much more famous traitor Corfitz Ulfeldt (1606–1664). He is known in the annals of whaling as the man who drove the French out of Spitsbergen. Ulfeldt later fought (and died) in the Torstenson War.

Ulfeldt was the son of Council of State member and Rigsadmiral (High Admiral) Mogens Ulfeldt (1569-1616) and Anne Christensdatter Lange (Munk). He had a sister and at least two brothers: Anne Mogensen Ulfeldt (1598-1655), Jacob Mogensen Ulfeldt and Christian Mogensen Ulfeldt. He was married to Else Andersdatter Thot (d. 1652), widow of Hans Lindenov.

In 1624 the king, Christian IV, wrote to Ulfeldt and his brothers, encouraging them to travel abroad. In order to cover travel expenses, they had to sell their father's Selsø estate. In 1631 Ulfeldt sold a manor in Bonderup; two years later he pledged his mother's Tvis and Krogsdal estates. On July 9, in the same year he sold the latter estates, he was commissioned as a ship's captain. In July 1634 he was made Admiral of the Elbe, and was ordered to seize any Hamburg ships he came across between Øresund and Helgoland. In October he was ordered to remain on the Elbe through the winter with Nældebladet and Skiens Galej, while Hummeren ("The Lobster"), Havhesten ("Sea Horse") and Kronegalej were to return to Copenhagen. In 1635 he spent a month recruiting seamen.

In March 1637 Ulfeldt received orders to convoy the Danish whaling fleet to Spitsbergen in the man-of-war De To Løver ("The Two Lions"), as well as to reassert Christian IV's claim of sovereignty over the land. Ulfeldt, with support from the fleet, seized some 600 barrels of whale oil and 60 barrels of baleen from the French ships under Petrissans de Larralde anchored in Port Louis (Hamburgbukta) before driving them out of their harbor. In July of the same year he also met a French ship on the open sea at 78° N, the Fleur of Ciboure, under Dominique Daguerre, which had been hunting whales between 73° and 76° N. Ulfeldt brought it to Copenhagen Bay (Kobbefjorden), where about 400 barrels of blubber and 100 quintals of baleen were confiscated. The following spring he again received orders to convoy the fleet, this time with three ships: De Tre Løver, Lammet, and Stokfisken. He again seized the French ships’ goods (559 casks of oil and over 9,000 lbs of baleen) and drove them out of Port Louis, which the Danes renamed Ulfeldt's Bay in his honor. His actions led the French to temporarily abandon Hamburgbukta. Ulfeldt also detained two Dutch ships, the Sanct Pieter, under Claes Melchiorsz, and the Eenhoorn, under Adriaen Ollebrantsz, for over a month in Copenhagen Bay, but they were later released after a brief battle between Ulfeldt and the rest of the Dutch whaling fleet. The Dutch complained bitterly against this treatment. Three years of negotiations followed, resulting in the two countries agreeing to cease hostilities in Spitsbergen. Ulfeldt's cruises were the last in a two-and-a-half decade long struggle between European whalers there.

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