Pirate Claus/Klaus Kniphoff was beheaded at Hamburg on this date in 1525.
He was the stepson of the former mayor of Malmö, a Hanseatic port on the southern reach of what is now Sweden, but which at the time answered to Danish sovereignty.
This was the very city where the 1524 treaty was inked settling the Swedish War of Liberation [from Denmark], and it was during this conflict that Kniphoff had taken from the Danish king Christian II a letter of marque authorizing him to prey on the merchant vessels of the Hanseatic League cities aiding Sweden’s rebellion. His prolific piracy career outlasted the end of the war.
The Hanseatic League, merchant-cities for whom open sea lanes were paramount, were always bound to take a dim view of his privateering and they had good legal grounds since there was never a declared war between Denmark and the Hanse. Danish speakers can enjoy a detailed biography here (pdf).
On this day..
- 1948: The Eilabun Massacre
- 1799: Sarah Clark, a melancholy instance of human depravity
- 1952: Wallace Ford, horrible in-law
- 1857: James Copeland, repentant gangster
- 1863: William Griffith, for the Marais des Cygnes massacre
- 1651: Terence Albert O'Brien, Bishop of Emly
- 1480: Cicco Simonetta
- 1885: George Miller, Inkster axster
- 1632: Henri II de Montmorency
- 2008: Greg Wright, still fighting for exoneration
- 1796: Lesurques, wrongly, and Couriol, rightly, for robbing the Lyons Mail
- 2007: Not Earl Wesley Berry ... for the time being