Medina Sidonia hanged one captain and broke nineteen for disobeying orders

Evidence

The duke did what he could about that. He held a summary court-martial aboard the San Martín and, on evidence that his order had been received and deliberately disobeyed, sentenced twenty delinquent captains to be hanged. One of the culprits, a gentleman and a neighbour of his at San Lucar, he did have hanged at the yard-arm of a pinnace which paraded through the fleet with its grisly burden. The remaining nineteen were removed from their commands and committed to the custody of the Judge Advocate General, Martin de Aranda. — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 819

Categorization

• FICTION: The image of a pinnace parading the fleet with a hanged man at the yard-arm is a brutal, visceral scene for the narrative.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 819
• XREF: connects to: Medina Sidonia’s leadership enabled rapid reassembly of the scattered Armada — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 749; Mass insubordination forced the duke to hang one captain and cashier nineteen others — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 819; Medina Sidonia may have made no decisive command error in the campaign — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 843 (+1 more)

Library Connections

• Medina Sidonia’s self-blame entrenched the myth of his incompetence #complicates (0.85) — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 831
• Medina Sidonia may have made no decisive command error in the campaign #complicates (0.75) — Garrett Mattingly, The Defeat of the Spanish Armada, 843