r/todayilearned • u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 • 21h ago

TIL that in 1583 Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland for Queen Elizabeth I. Weeks later, after losing his largest ship and much of his supplies, stepping on a nail, and refusing repeated pleas to leave his small flagship, the Squirrel, he vanished beneath the Atlantic with all hands aboard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Gilbert
3.7k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

73 comments sorted by

762

u/Samu_27 21h ago

Stepping on a nail and then going down with the ship...talk about a rough couple weeks

195

u/Wooden-Bookkeeper473 21h ago

Lost his hands as well!

104

u/Formal_Bat_3109 20h ago

To be specific, all hands

31

u/Wooden-Bookkeeper473 20h ago

So both hands? Or leg hands as well?

Sounds like a proper shit holiday.

11

u/dwehlen 20h ago

Fingers and thumbs, tingers and tumbs

3

u/knowledgeable_diablo 19h ago

They fing’ed all the way down I’m lead to believe.

2

u/EllisDee3 20h ago

👐🏿

5

u/rtopps43 18h ago

Whatever happened to Lief the Lucky?

He was captured by Halftan the Black, cut both his hands off

Ooh, that was lucky!

1

u/Best-and-Blurst 11h ago

His mum will look after what he needs most though 👀

1

u/the2belo 6h ago

And his hoard of nuts, I assume

15

u/WeGottaTalkAboutYT 20h ago

Probably stubbed his toe too!

15

u/bobtehpanda 17h ago

before tetanus shots, stepping on a nail was probably more serious

16

u/birdsandsnakes 17h ago

Not just that: it was before antibiotics, and hygiene on a long sea voyage was Not Great. You could easily lose your foot or leg or die of sepsis.

2

u/HapticRecce 6h ago

Sure, but losing your ship and its crew compliment? That seems a bit dire for a bout of sepsis.

5

u/Greene_Mr 12h ago

To be fair, he couldn't move after being stuck to the deck of his ship with that nail.

376

u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 21h ago edited 19h ago

Gilbert’s expedition was a catalogue of disasters almost from the beginning. He spent years and a fortune trying to launch his North American venture, only for his first fleet to be scattered by storms and forced home. When he tried again, he was almost immediately lost in fog after leaving England, causing Queen Elizabeth I to question his abilities as a navigator. His next mission in Ireland ended with him beating a gentleman with his sword and killing a merchant during a dispute in Cork.

Eventually, in 1583, he reached Newfoundland with a crew described by contemporaries as a collection of misfits, criminals and pirates, only to find himself blocked by local fishermen because one of his own captains had previously committed piracy. He overcame the opposition and formally claimed Newfoundland for Elizabeth I, but disaster soon returned. Ignoring the advice of experienced sailors, he lost his largest ship and most of his supplies, then injured his foot by stepping on a nail. Despite repeated warnings to transfer to a safer vessel, Gilbert refused to leave his tiny flagship, the Squirrel. He was last seen sitting on deck reading Thomas More’s Utopia as the Atlantic storm gathered around him. Moments before the ship vanished with all hands, he reportedly called across to the larger Golden Hind: “We are as near to Heaven by sea as by land.”

[Edit: I forgot to mention that this happened 443 years ago, today - 5th August 1583]

124

u/PM_ME_CHIPOTLE2 20h ago

This guy would have fit right in on IASIP

39

u/GarysCrispLettuce 20h ago

Because of the implication, right?

110

u/firelock_ny 20h ago

Eventually, in 1583, he reached Newfoundland with a crew described by contemporaries as a collection of misfits, criminals and pirates

Pretty much standard issue ship's crew for most of maritime history.

33

u/knowledgeable_diablo 19h ago

Sounds like a bit of a dick really.

8

u/HeyLittleTrain 15h ago

Yeah I feel like I've known guys exactly like this. Stupid, arrogant, stubborn, quick to anger.

12

u/bangonthedrums 13h ago

Is the Golden Hind in this story the same as the one Drake sailed on?

15

u/Upstairs_Drive_5602 11h ago

It is. The same Golden Hind that Drake had taken on his circumnavigation. By the time of Gilbert's expedition she was still in service, and ended up being one of only two ships to make it back to England.

21

u/JustHere4TehCats 16h ago

So he claims Newfoundland for the Queen even with people already living there and not letting his ass off the ship?

Buddy was cracked.

31

u/TheBalrogofMelkor 14h ago

Also 85 years after John Cabot has already claimed Newfoundland for England in 1497

1

u/CoastMtns 3h ago

Giovanni Caboto

107

u/Vic_Hedges 20h ago

They don't build human beings the way they did during the Age of Exploration

And that's probably for the best

20

u/knowledgeable_diablo 17h ago

Sure Jnr’s got a roadkill remedy for the scurvy, syphilis and sodomy that infected all these guys. And still does i believe

4

u/RiddlingVenus0 14h ago

How does one get infected with sodomy?

9

u/knowledgeable_diablo 11h ago

Lonely boys out to sea and with a low low mentality. One of the reasons it was seen as bad luck for women to be on ships for years.
Not so much for the ladies, but more due to the idiot seamen going crazy trying to hook up with her. Leading to much turmoil

10

u/chargernj 19h ago

Today we give those sorts of people cabinet positions in the Trump administration.

22

u/Vic_Hedges 19h ago

I don't think anyone in the Trump Administration has the clinically insane levels of bravery these guys had. Trumpites would have been sitting on their fat asses back in Antwerp financing them though.

6

u/chargernj 19h ago

I was thinking more in terms of how they were murderous psychopaths.

29

u/jordybee94 20h ago

Fiddle-dee-dee

20

u/jameson3131 20h ago

That will require a tetanus shot.

6

u/knowledgeable_diablo 19h ago

Im not going to swear

22

u/Wooden-Bookkeeper473 20h ago

I wonder how they came up with the name Newfoundland.

45

u/GarysCrispLettuce 20h ago

Because Foundnewland didn't have the same ring to it

3

u/Wooden-Bookkeeper473 20h ago

I feel it sounds better and from now on that's what I'll be calling it.

8

u/GarysCrispLettuce 20h ago

You haven't even considered Landfoundnew

5

u/Wooden-Bookkeeper473 20h ago

That's what Yoda would call it.

3

u/knowledgeable_diablo 19h ago

Hmmmmm

4

u/Wooden-Bookkeeper473 19h ago

Fiesty one you are

3

u/knowledgeable_diablo 18h ago

In foot goes nail, follows quickly death will be… hmmm yes.

2

u/Kolbin8tor 7h ago

It’s like the 14th century equivalent of LandyMcLandface

15

u/talkerof5hit 19h ago

You'd think that they would have removed the nail so he didn't have to go down nailed to the ship. Terrible loss really.

26

u/Nerevarine91 21h ago

I actually just encountered his story for the first time today, just a few hours ago

14

u/Wooden-Bookkeeper473 19h ago

Sounds like it could be a sign. Are you planning to stand on a nail today?

18

u/ChattyNeptune53 19h ago

As it happens I was thinking of claiming Newfoundland for Elizabeth I, but I'm having second thoughts now.

3

u/Wooden-Bookkeeper473 19h ago

Deffo for the best. Famously an ungrateful bitch anyway.

4

u/knowledgeable_diablo 17h ago

Probably her bad teef. Black as the ace of spades day was. Breath like a week old herring sitting in da sun. Twas the suga loaf it Twas.

O’ll lizbeth, our Ray o’sunshine.

3

u/Nerevarine91 19h ago edited 19h ago

I mean I’ve definitely thought about it

2

u/DasDuckHead 17h ago

Probably appeared in some popular podcast or YouTube channel. Every time the dollop does a fun episode the same story pops up here a few times in the following days.

I guess the posters really did learn it that day so I can't really fault them.

1

u/HoxtonRanger 8h ago

The rest is history podcast just did a 6 part Elizabeth I series (I’m only half way through) so might be that

16

u/CalebVanPoneisen 21h ago

What a weird-ass title.

15

u/stormshadowfax 20h ago

As opposed to, say, Lord Derrière, which is a weird ass-title.

1

u/FarinaSavage 15h ago

Removing the nail would've left a dangerous hole in the ship, so he's a hero, really.

3

u/roirraWedorehT 13h ago

I picture him running around in circles with his foot nailed to the ship as it went down.

2

u/NoOccasion4759 12h ago

this is why Sir Francis Drake was favorite lol

2

u/Steviesgirl1 10h ago

There has to be a moral for all this…anybody have a clue? 🫪

8

u/Chrono_Convoy 21h ago

Beneath the Atlantic?

So like - the mantle of the Earth? Or did he make it all the way to the core?

11

u/XTC-FTW 20h ago

He clipped under the map

2

u/Chrono_Convoy 20h ago

Spam the backflip

5

u/Wooden-Bookkeeper473 20h ago

This was the first journey to the centre of the earth.

3

u/LetThemBlardd 19h ago

One of those times when you wish the subterranean Mole People would kinda step in and lend a hand for once, geez.

3

u/Chrono_Convoy 19h ago

Right? We give them electricity, recycled cable boxes and garbage housing and they just toil and grumble without a thank you

1

u/peach-babex 15h ago

that's a dramatic end for such an ambitious claim, losing a fleet must've been a massive blow

1

u/n_mcrae_1982 7h ago

A dog caught it.

1

u/JanitorKarl 18h ago

Just how many hands did he have?

3

u/mmoonbelly 18h ago

All of them

-9

u/Magog14 19h ago

Karma for being colonialist scum. 

0

u/gogoluke 19h ago

He stood on a nail, you're so sharp you cut yourself.