Tag Archives: 1520

1520: Gaspar Quesada, Magellan’s expedition mutineer

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On this date* in 1520, on his famous voyage of circumnavigation, explorer Ferdinand Magellan ordered the immediate execution of a mutinous captain.

Not to be trifled with.

Having alit just days before at the natural harbor of Puerto San Julien on the Brazilian Argentine coast (Magellan named it) with plans to winter there, the overweening Portuguese explorer faced an uprising of grumpy Spanish officers.

Gaspar Quesada, captain of the Concepcion, along with Luis de Mendoza of the Victoria and recently displaced San Antonio skipper Juan de Cartagena, seized some of the expedition’s ships during the night of April 1-2.

Since you know Magellan’s name five centuries later, you already know he quashed it.

As the sovereign of this fragile floating world, Magellan had little choice but to treat a challenge to his authority mercilessly.**

Though accounts are inconsistent, it seems Mendoza was boldly slain by one of Magellan’s men meeting him under color of “negotiation”.


Mendoza’s assassination. From this site.

Mendoza was then posthumously beheaded and quartered along with Gaspar Quesada. Juan de Cartagena was either executed as well, or else caught a “break”: some sources relate that, instead of executing Cartagena, Magellan had him marooned.

the twentieth of June [1578], wee harboured ourselues againe in a very good harborough, called by Magellan Port S. Julian, where we found a gibbet standing upon the maine, which we supposed to be the place where Magellan did execution upon some of his disobedient and rebellious company.

–From a member of the Francis Drake expedition. Just 12 days later and at the very same place, Drake visited a similar penalty for a similar offense upon one of his own crew.

* “‘The authorities’ are divertingly divergent on the precise date of these events,” says O.H.K. Spate in The Spanish Lake, referring specifically to the dates of the mutiny. “Denucé puts them on Easter Sunday and Monday, 1–2 April; Merriman on Easter Sunday and Monday, 8–9 April; Nowell on Palm Sunday and the next day, with the trial verdict on 7 April. By the Julian calendar, in use until 1582, the dates would be 1–2 April; by the Gregorian, ten days later. Pigafetta and Maximilian, who slur over the whole affair, give no dates at all. It is not of vast moment.” Clearly, O.H.K. Spate never had to write an almanac blog.

Anyway, there’s some primary sourcing on this affair here.

** Though Magellan made an example of the leaders, he pragmatically spared about 40 others after keeping them in chains and working the pumps for three months. After all, the man still needed to crew his ships.

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1520: Hemming Gadh

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On this date in 1520, Hemming Gadh was beheaded at Raseborg Castle, Finland for his support of Swedish independence from Denmark.

Gadh (English Wikipedia entry | Swedish | free Swedish biography), around 70 by this time, had had a colorful, opportunistic career in Swedish politics. And religion: he was once temporarily Bishop of Linkoping, but could not win papal approval for the post and got excommunicated a few years later.

A Gadh-fly to the Danish-run Kalmar Union, he was a longtime supporter of Swedish independence agitator Sten Sture the Elder — so much so that when Sten kicked the bucket in 1503, it was Gadh who spiked the story and sent a squire disguised as the late statesman running off to Stockholm to rally his successors before the opposition could capitalize on the situation. (Sweden: The Nation’s History, by Franklin D. Scott)

Gadh was a key figure holding the Swedish party together in a decade-long interregnum until Sten Sture the Younger was up to the task.

And young Sten’s arrival was just in time, because around 1518, Gadh got captured, went over to the Unionist party, and helped it capture Stockholm … precipitating an infamous bloodbath.

Danish King Christian II evidently didn’t trust this turncoat any further than he could throw him, however, which was quite a bit further when he was cut in two. The opportunism that had served Gadh so well for so long this time cost him his head. (Swedish link.)

When in Finland, you can still see the dramatic former island keep where it all went down:


Raseborg Castle (Finnish: Raaseporin linna, Swedish: Raseborgs slott) in Ekenas.

(More information here)

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1520: Stockholm Bloodbath

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On this date in 1520, four days after the Danish King Christian II gained the Swedish throne, nearly 100 prominent supporters of Swedish independence were executed en masse as a civil war’s apparent victors purged their enemies.

The Stockholm Bloodbath followed years of conflict between supporters of the Danish-dominated Kalmar Union and independence advocates under the banner of Sten Sture the Younger. With Sture’s death in battle earlier in 1520, the unionists had gained the upper hand. Stockholm, the last outpost of resistance, had held against four months’ siege before accepting a general amnesty in exchange for capitulation.

But with the city in hand, Christian — known to Swedish history as “Christian the Tyrant” — had its leaders charged for having deposed during the conflict the pro-union Archbishop Gustav Trolle, construed as an offense against the Church not in the temporal authority’s power to reprieve. Less than 24 hours after this legal maneuver was sprung, public beheadings of prelates, merchants and burgomasters were underway at Stortorget* — and Sture’s remains were exhumed and posthumously burnt at the stake.

Stortorget

It proved a Pyrrhic victory for the Danish party.

Inside of three years, Christian himself had been deposed with multiple lands and factions throughout his realm in open revolt. Gustav Vasa, whose father had been one of the Stockholm Bloodbath’s victims, would not only decisively break Denmark’s hold on Sweden but found the Vasa Dynasty under which Sweden would burgeon into one of Europe’s great powers.

*One Hans Brask survived the purge despite having endorsed the removal of Archbishop Trolle. Brask supposedly placed a note under his seal on this document saying “To this I am forced and compelled.” This cunning device gave the Swedish tongue the word Brasklapp — a secret reservation.

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