1565 Portrait
Born at a family estate in Nyirbator, Hungary on 8/7/1560, and raised at Ecsed Castle, Elizabeth has the best of everything growing up, including having on uncle on her father's side of the family that is the Voivode of Transylvania (the highest ranking official of the region), and on her mother's side, another uncle who has also been the area's voivode, plus another uncle, Stephan Bathory, who is the King of Poland, Grand Duke of Lithuana, and Prince of Transylvania. Surrounded by power and wealth, she is raised as a Protestant Calvinist, and learns to read and write in Latin, German, Hungarian, and Greek ... and it is said that she also receives an education in cruelty and sadism from her family (which dovetails nicely with rumors of her having epileptic seizures and sudden fits of mad rage), watching officers execute prisoners, seeing family beat servants, and having an aunt that secretly initiates her into Satanism and Witchcraft. At the tender age of only 10, she becomes engaged to the son of a baron, Ferenc Nadasdy (between betrothal and nuptials, Elizabeth is said to have been impregnated by a local servant boy, to which Nadasdy responds by having the lad castrated, and then torn to pieces by starving dogs). When the pair marry in May of 1575 before 4,500 guests at the palace of Vranov nad Topfou, Elizabeth is 15 and Nadasdy is 19 (for a wedding gift, Elizabeth is given Cachtice Castle, a Cachtice country home, and 17 local villages.
Count Ferenc Nadasdy
Main Tower Of Cachtice Castle
Bathory - Circa 1580
A strange marriage at best, with war against the Ottoman Empire raging at the time, Nadasdy spends most of his time away from home, building up a successful military career that will eventually have him known to history as The Black Knight of Hungary, while his wife is left behind to run the family's many estates and business affairs ... during visits home, the relationship also produces two daughters, Anna and Katalin, and a son, Paul. And the two are said to exchange correspondence that feeds Elizabeth's budding blood lust, stories of Nadasdy's impalements of Turkish prisoners and of his wife's experiments with human blood as a skin care product. To war once too often, in 1601, Nadasdy contracts an unknown disease that causes him debilitating pain in his legs, paralysis in 1603, and death in 1604 ... ending a mad marriage of 29 years, the Black Knight is 48 when he leaves.
A Bad Way To Go!
With rumors growing of her demonic misdeeds, seemingly growing worse as she ages, Elizabeth, and a local witch, Dorotta Szentes, harvest local servant girls for their blood to the point that a new pool of victims is required ... solution, open a boarding school on proper court behavior in the castle for the daughters of lessor nobles. But this is a step too far, and when these ladies begin vanishing, Lutheran minister Istvan Magyari makes complaints that eventually reach King Matthias II, who assigns his second in command, Gyorgy Thurzo, the Palatine of Hungary, to investigate the matter (the same man that Nadasdy has asked to watch over his wife prior to his death). Gathering evidence, Thurzo finally leads a surprise December raid on Elisabeth's castle in 1610 ... where he and his band of knights are horrified to discover Elizabeth and her minions (Szentes, two female servants, Ilona Jo and Katarina Benicka, and a male servant, Janos Ujvary ... later, the female accomplices have their fingers torn off by hot iron tongs, before being burnt to death, while Ujvary, thought to be a lessor participant, is merely decapitated) in the process of torturing a young girl (beating her with a club and slashing her with scissors), while nearby, there is another young girl's corpse and yet another young girl in the process of dying. Searching the castle and its grounds, more young women will be discovered locked away for future evil play, and bodies are found showing signs of murderous torture.
Matthias
Thurzo
Placed under house arrest, two hushed up trials quickly take place in which the black deeds within the castle are documented ... skeletons and cadavers found on castle's grounds are examined and over 300 witnesses testify (all but one of Elizabeth's servants testify against her). The story that emerges is a tale of decades of murder and torture that includes burning objects being placed in orifices where they don't belong, a servant having her mouth torn apart by hand, cold water being poured on girls placed outside to freeze to death, poison experiments, mouths being sewn shut, victims made to eat their own flesh (cut out of their buttocks) or drink their own urine, cannibalism, extended beatings of over 500 blows, lips and noses being burnt off, naked girls covered in honey, pegged down, and then left for ants and other insects to delight on, needles being driven under fingertips and toenails, girls being buried alive, and multiple scissor and razor slashings leading to murder (only later will rumors begin of her blood bathing beneath freshly killed virgins, a tale that is said to start when she draws blood slapping a servant and notices her skin seems younger). The number of victims is unknown, but authorities believe her murders are in excess of 650, but they settle for an official count of 80. Her own death and torture seemingly in order for her many crimes (an outcome King Matthias II is in favor of), to avoid scandal to the wealthy and powerful Bathory family, Thurzo instead comes up with a compromise that Elizabeth's family agrees to ... it will be a crime for her name to be mentioned in public, the money the King owes the family for funding his wars against the Turks will be waived, and Elizabeth will spend the rest of her days under house arrest, walled into a room with no outside windows, and only thin slots for ventilation and food.
Elizabeth Bathory Coat Of Arms
Blood Bath
Bathory Choosing Her Victims
Elizabeth takes her medicine for four years, but on the evening of 8/21/1614, she complains to her guard that her hands are feeling cold. Told it is probably nothing and she should just go to bed, she lies down, but never gets back up, her lifeless body discovered the next morning. Buried at first in the Cachtice churchyard, when locals complain about having a demoness buried among family and friends, she is moved to crypt on the grounds of the home she grew up in at Ecsed Castle ... from which it fittingly mysteriously vanishes, the location of her body now unknown to this day.
Castle & Lake
And like the vampire legends she will become a part of, dead but undead, the Blood Countess lives on ... she appears as both heroine and villainess in history books, novels (pieces of her tale are woven into Bram Stoker's "Dracula"), poetry, comic books and Japanese anime, stage plays, television shows, films, radio dramatizations, video games, toys (6 Faces of Madness, a group of action figures that also includes Jack the Ripper and Rasputin), and music (along with songs and music, eight international bands, stretching from Sweden to Mexico and America, will name themselves after Elizabeth Bathory) ... along with tours of her haunts (a 45 minute hike takes on to the ruins of Chchtice Castle). Elizabeth Bathory takes no more victims after today ... 12/30/1610.
The Countess With Julie Delphy
As Bathory
Beneath Castle Cactice
Aerial View Of The Castle - Tour at Your Own Risk!
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