Elisabeth Bathory

The blood countess is what she was best know as, but Elisabeth bathory had a very rough life growing up. Was her child hood to blame for how she was as an adult, or was she just a messed up person? Only she will ever know the real truth,but here is what we know about the blood countess Elisabeth Bathory.

Elisabeth Bathory was born August 7th 1560 on a family estate in Nyibator Royal Hungary and spent her childhood at Ecsed castle. Her father was Baron Gerorge VI Bathory of the ecsed branch of the family, who was also the brother of Andrew Bonaventuna Bathory who had voivode of Transylvania.Her mother was Baroness Anna Bathory the daughter of Stephen Bathory of Somlyo; another voivode of Transylvania. Through her mother Elisabeth was the niece of Stephen Bathory the king of Poland and the grand duke of Lithuania of the polish-Lithuania commonwealth and the prince of Transylvania. Her older brother was Stephen Bathory who became a judge royal of Hungary.

As a child Elisabeth suffered multiple seizures that may had been caused by epilepsy, possibly stemming from the inbreeding of her parents. At the time symptoms relating to epilepsy were diagnosed as falling sickness and treatment included rubbing blood of a non-suffers on the lips of an epileptic or giving the epileptic a mix of a non-suffers blood and piece of the skull as their episode ended.

Elisabeth was raised a Calvinist Protestant and as a young women she learned Latin, German,Hungarrin, and Greek. Being born in a noble family Bathory was endowed with wealth, education, and a prominent social rank. There was talk of Elisabeth giving birth to a child at age 13 that was fathered by a peasent boy and was given away to a women that the family trusted. The thing was Elisabeth was already engaged to be married, she had been engaged since she was 10 years old. Her fiance was Ferenc Nadasdy and the two were married when she was 15 and he 19. Her husband gave her a wonderful wedding present and that being his household castle of casejte. The two would live in the castle and have 5 children together. Tragedy would strike on January 4th, 1604 when Ferenc Nadasdy would pass away from an unknown illness, he was only 48 years old.

Between 1602 and 1604 after rumors of Bathory's activities had been spreading throughout the kingdom. Istvan Magyari a minister of Lutheran made complaints against her both publicly and at the court in Vienna. Finally after 9 years of complaints king Mathis the second assigned Thurzo the Palatine of Hungary to investigate. Thurzo had people collecting evidence in March 1610 and by October the had collected 52 witness statements and by 1611 that number had risen to over 300.

It started with girls aged 10 to 14, and later said she had begun killing daughters of the lesser gentry, who were sent to her by their parents to learn courtly etiquette. There was also evidence of there being abductions as well. There was description of girls being beaten, burned, bitten, frozen and starved. On December 30th, 1610 Elisabeth Bathory was arrested while she was eating dinner. A letter was sent to the king saying that she had been captured and was confined to the castle.She was locked in a room till 1614 when she was allowed to walk the castle freely, but was not able to ever leave.On August 21, 1614 Elisabeth was found dead in her bed where she has passed in her sleep, she was 54 years old.

There was talk that she did all these things because she was an unstable person, but it was also said that all she was trying to do was cure her illness of epilepsy. Everyone has their take on the subject, but no one really knows the true of why she did it. Only Elisabeth Bathory herself knows why and she took that truth to the grave with her.