Shortly thereafter, on February 23rd, 13-year-old Pál Nádasdy also wrote a letter to Thurzó from his winter residence at Castle Kuresztúr, crafted with a brilliant legal argument that, undoubtedly, was influenced by his guardian, Megyeri (who might also have been having a change of heart now). In it, young Pál asked Thurzó for a favor on the basis of their kinship, to do all that was possible to prevent the King from punishing his mother as intended. He argued that Thurzó had already conducted sufficient discovery in the case, such that no additional interrogations were required and that any further summons would be inappropriate in lieu of the sentence. Most important, he argued, the King would stand to gain nothing: all of Erzsébet Báthory’s properties had already been distributed to her three children before the trial, thus putting it out of the King’s reach:
….I took from your letter what His Majesty has ordered you to do to my miserable mother. I have your response to His Majesty, and realize how often you are well disposed toward me and my sisters. God grant that we, I and my sisters and brothers-in-law, can reward your kindness by obedience from a pure heart throughout our entire lives. It is true, as you wrote to His Majesty, that the Citatio (court summons) should have been issued sooner and that it is now inappropriate, because Your Grace, as the country's Chief Justice, has already done enough extentio. It is no longer necessary to continue, since the present punishment of my poor mother is worse than death, and not necessary to proceed according to the command of His Majesty since a judgment on her life has already been made. Turning now to her property, there is no need to fear, because before her arrest, she turned it all over to the three of us. Nevertheless, we the relatives and humble subjects of His Majesty, wish to ask that your use of legal force against my mother not impose eternal shame on our family. However, we do not want to act without the knowledge and advice of Your Grace; it is not fitting. I therefore implore you, please, write us your opinion on how my sisters and I should proceed with our intercession to His Majesty so as not to cause Your Grace any grief; indeed, as we learned from your letter, which we have kept secret. I await a favorable response from you, as my beloved father and Lord. God grant you many years in good health. Castle Keresztúr, 23 February, 1611.
Thurzó must have been intrigued; until this letter, he may not have even realized that a will was already in existence. The Palatine immediately engaged in a round of politics with legal advisors to the King and his own Protestant friends in the Hungarian Parliament. Finally, on March 30th, Thurzó sent a reply letter to the King, who, meanwhile, had been pressuring him repeatedly to move forward with the interrogation of Countess Báthory. Thurzó wrote:
…I, as Chief Judge next to Your Majesty, arranged her imprisonment after careful deliberation with the common consent of her relatives and her sons-in-law. The same Council of Lords and sitting judge confirmed for me today that I have taken the correct approach. The difficulty in this case, when weighing justice, is that it very rarely happens that highly regarded women of our time, as a result of their way of life, find themselves in such a highly alarming situation that the death penalty should be imposed on them, as well as to ask, what benefit would the government (treasury) receive in this case. Your Majesty will receive a full report on everything contained in this message upon the return of the sublime and dignified (Magnificus ac generosus) noble directors and their associated Council of Lords of the Court Chamber of Pressburg)….
In support, Parliament issued a formal reply to the Catholic nobility that Thurzó had conducted the proceedings against Countess Báthory in a proper manner. On March 31, 1611, Judges Tamás Vizkelety and Ferenc Leranth composed a letter to the King, co-signed by the Learned Secretaries of the Royal House and Legal Council to the King (Council of the Hungarian Chamber). They advised His Majesty that nothing would be gained from another trial: first, it would be difficult to prove, under the law, that the Countess killed noble girls in a pre-meditated way; second, even if proven, by law the Crown was entitled to receive a maximum of only one-third of the estate of the decapitated; and third, in the case of simple murders (i.e., of low-born people), the interested parties themselves had to make the allegations against the Countess—not the prosecutor (i.e., suggesting that it would be highly unlikely, given the local people’s fear of the Countess, that they would actually step forward to make accusations against her). In addition, certain procedural errors were mentioned to the King, such as the continued taking of preliminary interrogatories—which were supposed to be kept confidential—even after they had become public knowledge.
The lawyers of the Royal Curia concluded:
….However, since nearly all of the judges of the Kingdom and Assessor of the Royal Court are so inclined and, thus, since we hardly have to do anything to secure a ruling, [we] recommend a mild verdict on the part of Your Majesty in consideration of the gracious, faithful and useful services of the deceased husband of this woman and her minor son and daughters, one of whom is married to the illustrious and glorious Lord Count Nikolaus Zrínyi, the other to Lord György Homonnay, both important nobles and Your Holy Majesty’s faithful servants and useful and good citizens of your country, who are against the extreme punishment of putting this woman to death, but rather beseech you to decide her punishment so as to effectively remain at life-long imprisonment, respectively….
All of this must have only infuriated King Mátyás more; his bid at becoming Emperor could have depended on winning the matter. Possibly, he had also learned of Erzsébet’s attempts behind the scenes to depose him in collusion with her cousin, Gábor Báthory. Thus, he refused to certify Thurzó’s sentence of life imprisonment, ignored the advice of his legal counsel and, instead, reopened the case by fiat. The King ordered a new investigation, summoning Notary András of Keresztúr to call up more witnesses against the Countess, including her court officials and those from all of the areas under her administrative control, including Beckóv, Kostolány, Csejthe, and Vrobvé (Hung. Verbó).
When completed, András of Keresztúr would submit his report in July of 1611 after questioning an incredible number of people—224 in total. The results, however, were not at all what the King desired.
19
FINAL SENTENCING
In a document dated July 28, 1611, Notary András of Keresztúr dutifully recorded the testimonies of 224 people—court officials, servants, administrators, townspeople, clergy and nobles—from all throughout Erzsébet’s vast holdings. The King also received a report of the testimonies given under torture by the Countess’ four accomplices. In sum, the results, unfortunately, were not what anyone wanted to hear—including King Mátyás.
In a shocking turn of events, these witnesses laid bare the putrid “dirty laundry” of not only the Countess, but also the outwardly illustrious Báthory-Nádasdy families and neighboring nobility, in no uncertain terms. Hungary’s beloved war hero, Ferenc Nádasdy, was exposed as a villain who brutalized servants, taught his wife bizarre torturing games, and covered up her murders; personnel from Erzsébet’s court and towns, respected squires and nobles, were accused of assisting in the murders by procuring girls (in some cases, their own relatives), engaging in a cover up, or turning a blind eye. As the allegations continued to pour out, suddenly Imre Megyeri was on the defensive: he and young Pál Nádasdy had to lobby intensively now to protect their own staff against accusations of complicity or cover up.
The King was astonished. As much as he wanted to implicate Erzsébet Báthory, he could not risk such terrible evidence against Hungary’s national hero—or against so many other nobles. That would raise the ire of too many. Desperate, he called another tribunal of witnesses to be certain of the testimony. Besides Csejthe, the worst offenses seemed to have occurred at the Báthory-Nádasdy holdings at Sárvár, Keresztúr and Lockenhaus (Leka): Mátyás next ordered Deputy Notary Mózes Cziráky to summon witnesses from those particular holdings: twelve were called, and the report completed on December 14, 1611. Those testifying came from the nobility and sup
posedly held the “highest credibility”; among them were star witnesses, including court officials Benedikt Deseö (no longer in the Countess’ employ) and Jakob Szilvassy, the two men who had rare permission to witness the Countess and her assistants in action.
However, the witnesses repeated exactly what had been said about the shameful goings on. No mistake had been made. At Thurzo’s repeated urgings, the King finally conceded: Countess Báthory would not be brought to public trial. Relieved, Thurzó immediately brokered a clever deal. In light of the evidence, he recommended his original sentence of perpetuis carceribus (perpetual/life imprisonment) rather than the death penalty. This time, however, he included a caveat to please Mátyás: legally, it would be as though Countess Erzsébet Báthory never existed. Mátyás’ debt to her was immediately cancelled, and a small portion of her lands would cede to him. Any documentation regarding the Countess, including all legal records of the incriminating proceedings, would be sealed. By order of Parliament, the name of Erzsébet Báthory would never again be spoken in polite society.
King Mátyás agreed to the terms. As a result, the Báthory and Nádasdy reputations, including Ferenc’ national honors, remained intact; Sárvár passed to Pál Nádasdy, and Erzsébet’s sons-in-law were appointed permanent administrators of her estates until Pál came of age; the lands of other Hungarian nobles were temporarily preserved against undue Catholic advances; and in 1612, the following year, King Mátyás was crowned Holy Roman Emperor.
For everyone, the news was good—except for Countess Erzsébet. Stonemasons arrived shortly thereafter to carry out her final sentence: she was never to be let out of confinement. Legend says that she spent her final confinement in the private apartments within the tower of Castle Csejthe, although some commentators insist that she remained below in the dungeon of the keep. In any case, she was allegedly walled in with only a single space left between the bricks large enough for the passage of food, supplies, and excrement.
Some have argued that Erzsébet’s final confinement was not literally to her tower apartment or dungeon (i.e., she was never actually bricked up inside) but, rather, that she was sentenced to perpetual house arrest where she could roam freely throughout her castle estate. We believe that during the course of the various trials and tribunals, Erzsébet was indeed subject to a much looser form of house arrest in which she had some latitude to come and go within the estate or, at least, was not yet walled into a particular space. After the December 1611 tribunal, however, Thurzó’s sentence of perpetuis carceribus (life/perpetual imprisonment), confirmed by both King and Parliament, was actually enforced by means of walling her up.
One wonders what daily life was now like for Countess Báthory. Likely, during the first few months after imposition of her final sentence, she received visitors—her daughter, Katalin, for instance, who brought supplies such as candles, parchment, ink, and favorite food items. As her sons-in-law, Counts Drugeth de Homonnay and Zrínyi, assumed full responsibility for administering her estates, there must have been at least a few visits in which they or their representatives inquired after details.
We also know that György Thurzó’s wife, Erzsébet Czobor, paid more than a few visits in January of 1612. Each time that Countess Czobor visited, however, she left with more than she came: she was systematically raiding Countess Báthory’s coffers, including her jewelry. The Thurzos’daughter, Borbála, was engaged to marry Count Kristóf Erdődy in September of that year, and substantial finances were required for the wedding. The plundering was so bad, in fact, that Count Zsigmond Forgách, writing on behalf of the Supreme Court of Hungary, ordered Győrgy Thurzó to put a stop to his wife’s activities.
Slowly, however, the visits diminished, and people began to forget about the Countess. No longer in charge of the estates, her importance faded. Of course, she continued to write letters, protesting her innocence and demanding an appeal, but no one answered. It is said that when supplies of parchment ended, she began writing on the walls.
While by no means an ideal living condition, the Countess did have enough food, water, and air to survive: in her fifties now, she would still live another two-and-a-half years behind the wall, at an already advanced age for the time. How she spent those last years is hard to say. Eventually, however, Erzsébet herself knew the end was coming. We know that she had no great affection for her sons-in-law. As matters currently stood, upon her death both men planned to assume permanent control over the sizable properties they were administering on behalf of her two daughters.
Thus, on July 31, 1614, three weeks before she died, two priests from the Esztergom bishopric, Imre Agriensy (Emericus Agriens) and András Kerpelich, arrived at Castle Csejthe by her request to witness and notarize an addendum to her Last Will and Testament. In this document, she reiterated that all of her property had previously been given to her three children. In particular, she wished to make clear that György Drugeth de Homonnay was not to receive anything further. Apparently, ownership of the City of Keresztúr was at issue: the Countess wanted to reiterate that her daughter, Katalin, should receive this property—not her husband, György Drugeth de Homonnay—and that appropriate legal action had been taken toward this end:
We, the Cathedral Capital of Eszertgom, commemorate the following: that we, on the amiable request of the noble lady, Countess Erzsébet Báthory, the widow of the former illustrious and noble gentleman, Count Nádasdy, who, because of her captivity is not personally able to come to us, sent two of our Venerables, namely Messrs. Andreas Kerpelich and Emericus Agiens, our brothers and fellow clerics, who took the following confession that the lady gave to us; this, in turn, made it appropriate for them to serve witness to what this finally reported, after they were returned to us, under oath, as set forth in a general decree:
That in the current year of the Lord, 1614, on the 31st day of July in the castle called Csejthe, having been built in County Neutra, where the aforementioned Lady Countess Erzsébet Báthory, in the personal presence of our brothers voluntarily and on her own initiative stated the following and in this way expressed: that she bequeathed the City of Keresztúr in the County of Abauj to her daughter Katalin Nádasdy, the wife of the illustrious and venerable György Drugeth of Homonnay; and that this bequest had already been transferred and assigned during her captivity but in such a way that, up to this point, had merely released it and that she was not yet in her full and permanent possession. Also, she bequeathed nothing more to Lord György Homonnay; rather, after they put her in prison, she made her assignments only to her heirs and passed along nothing further.
Therefore, if she desired, and even if she still wanted to exclude someone from her property, nor could she have so wished in the least; her intention therefore continues to be that the entire property will be divided among them (her heirs). Finally, had she established in documents of the aforementioned Lord György Homonnay, in the journal of 1610, what property she had assigned, which is why we have kept for ourselves these writings on these dispositions aforementioned by Lady Erzsébet Báthory to the knowledge of our trusted brothers, in writing referred to under the seal of our chapter and entrusted to them. Given on Sunday after the Feast of St. Peter in Chains (in vinculi), in 1614.
Erzsébet’s attempts to keep property away from György Drugeth de Homonnay were likely in vain, however; a little less than three weeks later, on Thursday, August 18, 1614, 16-year-old Pál Nádasdy transferred one-third of the dominion of Csejthe and Beckov over to him.
Two days later, on the night of Sunday, August 21, 1614, Countess Erzsébet Báthory was concerned about her poor circulation. She told her bodyguard, “Look, how cold my hands are!” Her attendant told her that it was nothing and that she should simply lie down. With that, she put her pillow under her legs and then began singing with a beautiful voice. Commentators say that she passed away at two hours after midnight (2:00 a.m.), but a letter from Slanislav Thurzó to his cousin, György, states that she was found dead in the morning.
Three days later, on August 25, 1614, Stanislav Thurzó wrote to György Thurzó, in which he reported that Countess Báthory had died:
….The death of Mrs. Nádasdy may already be known to you and how she unexpectedly resigned from this life. In the evening, said she to her bodyguard: “Look, how cold my hands are!” The bodyguard told her: “It’s nothing, Mistress. Just go and lie down.” She then went to sleep. She took the pillow that was under her head and put it under her feet. As such, she lied down and, in the same night, she died. In the morning, she was found dead. They say, however, she prayed imploringly and praised God with beautiful singing. Regarding her funeral, we still have no information. I commend myself and my services, along with my wife, to Your Grace, your wife, and your beloved children. God grant Your Grace a long and healthy life. Pöstyén, 25 August, Anno Domini 1615.
Infamous Lady: The True Story of Countess Erzsébet Báthory Page 18