A variety of horrors and scary stories have long excited and attracted humanity. No wonder so many charming books and films have been invented. But often what happens or happened in real life turns out to be a hundred times worse than invented opuses. A great example of this is the cruelty of Elizabeth Bathory. Her sophisticated and terrible saga causes disgust and fear even the most daring and calm people.
Start way
The mysterious and gloomy Transylvania, in which young Elizabeth was born, was famous for her horrors without her. Everyone knows the story of Tepes, nicknamed Count Dracula. Bathory tastefully continued the bloody tradition of the brutal count.
But the mad lord mocked his enemies - the Turks - to inspire fear and protect his land from conquest. The countess’s biography abounds with torture over people only for her perverse pleasure. She tried so hard that she went down in history as one of the most brutal maniacs.
The countess's full name is Alzhbet (Erzhebet or Elizabeth) Batorova-Nadddi. She was born in the 1560th year in a small Hungarian settlement Nyirbator. The family was rich, but was strange in its own way. The origin of each member of this clan belonged to one branch of the clan: the head of the family, Gyord, was the brother of the governor Andrash Bathory, and his wife Anna was the daughter of the governor Istvan the Fourth. The countess herself, by mother, was the niece of the king of Poland and Lithuania, Stefan Batory. In total, the family had four children.
The whole family somehow suffered from severe mental and physical illnesses: schizophrenia, epilepsy, alcoholism, gout and rheumatism.
Elizabeth was especially tormented by rheumatism. Living conditions in a damp castle could not fail to cause this serious ailment among its inhabitants. As a young girl, the countess often came in fierce rage for no particular reason. But not only genetics were to blame for such psychopathic licentiousness - medieval traditions and the general cruelty of that time contributed to this.
From childhood, they tried to educate an unhealthy aristocrat with dignity and give a suitable education: she was taught Greek, German and Latin. The whole clan earnestly adhered to Calvinism. Perhaps it happened that religion was the cause of tragedy in the life of a severe woman.
Personal life
The privileges of a noble noble family were enormous, but when political considerations demanded it, the girl at the age of ten was adopted for the son of an influential person. Ferenc Nadashdi and Erzhebet played a luxurious wedding five years after the engagement. The festival took place in a huge castle, there were more than four thousand guests.
The position of the wife’s clan turned out to be much higher than that of her husband Ferenc. This circumstance allowed Elizabeth to remain with her surname and insist that her husband now be called: Ferenc Bathory. Despite her young age, the countess already knew how to insist on her and impose her will on anyone. The couple soon moved to the territory of Slovakia, to the huge Chakhtitsky castle. After the husband had to leave for Vienna, the young wife dominated a huge estate consisting not only of a family nest, but also of seventeen small villages.
The frequent absences of Ferenc, his participation in the battles in no way prevented the countess from arranging her personal life and having children without a husband, continuing the famous Bathory clan. After some time, Elizabeth married Miklos Zrinyi.
It is known about the birth of the countess of five children. And also some facts show that before getting married, a girl at the age of thirteen gave birth to a daughter from a servant. Enraged, Ferenc brutally executed the offender, but what happened to the baby is not known for certain.
Raising legitimate children involved nannies and governesses. The ruler herself led with a strict hand the subjects entrusted to her. During the war, she had to reassure and console residents whose relatives died or were captured.
After the death of Ferenc, according to his testament, Count Gyorgy Turzo, the Palatine of Hungary, looked after the countess.
Homicide investigations
In the 1600s, information about the unbelievable atrocities happening on the Bathory estate came to the ruling house of the Gasburgs. It was said that the countess cruelly tortures beautiful virgins and, after their death, is washed by the blood of victims to preserve her beauty.
Despite the terrible crimes that took place in the Chakhtitsky castle, an investigation was appointed only eight or nine years after complaints about the cruelty of Elizabeth. Such an important matter was entrusted to her guardian Turzo, who executed him in a short time: in only five days, the peasants were interviewed. More than three hundred witnesses confirmed the guilt of the countess and her entourage. Three of her assistants, after torture, were burned.
Elizabeth was accused of the death of more than six hundred people. After the end of the case, all documents, diaries and portraits of Elizabeth Bathory were destroyed. Even the memory of the monstrous maniac was terrifying to her contemporaries.
