[8] During his brief tenure he showed ability as a capable administrator and inspiring leader that would later create a legend.

On 15 February, under specific orders of bishop Drašković,[9] he was publicly tortured and forced to wear a red-hot iron crown, cruelly dragged along the streets of the city, pinched with red-hot iron pincers, and was subsequently quartered.

In the 20th century, the Croatian Peasant Party, and later Josip Broz Tito and the Yugoslav Partisans, embraced his cause as their own.

[11] During the Spanish Civil War, Yugoslav leftists who served in the pro-Republican International Brigades named their force the Grupo Matija Gubec.

[12] A museum of Croatian-Slovenian peasant revolt led by him is founded in Oršić Castle in Gornja Stubica, near the place of his last battle.