Elisabeth Báthory
Elisabeth Báthory
- Born in 1560 in the upper aristocracy of Hungary .
- Related to the king of Poland.
- Her childhood has been retold in the light of her later crimes with an emphasis on acts of cruelty.
- As a suffer of epilepsy, she may have been subjected to a contemporary cure that required blood or pieces of skull to be rubbed upon her lips ( no real evidence).
- She was married at 15 to the count Ferenc Nadasdy who took her surname as the Báthorys were more powerful .
- She bore five children after a decade of childlessness
- She was widowed in 1604. As a lone and rich woman in such a position she was vulnerable and felt overwhelmed by dealing with constant infringements upon her status including attempts to take over her lands or try and force her to sell.
- Rumours of her luring girls into a finishing school for daughters of aristocracy and torturing and killing them began soon.
- Complaints have been made by her enemies in Vienna and investigation launched.
- They pursued around 1602-1604 and 1610-1611
- Around 300 witness statements were collected, although it is not clear under which circumstances.
Many accounts were exaggerated based on hearsay or proven to be false .
- A irregular trial was held in 1610, during which she was not let to speak in her defense.
- She was convicted, meaning that the state no longer had to pay the huge sums it owed her.
- Four of her servants were executed and she spent the rest of her life imprisoned in Cathice Castle.
- She died in 1614, resting place unknown.
- Recent scholarship has revised the nightmarish story of a countess bathed in blood , suggesting Elisabeth was the victim of a smear campaign by the Hapsburgs intent upon reducing her power and eradicating their debts.
- Source ~Amy License.
( "16th century in 100 women " ).
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