Countess Dracula

by Tony Thorne

  Another motive for Tatay’s hostility to Elisabeth’s court has been proposed by Dr Irma Szádeczky-Kardoss, who discovered that Stephen Báthory, the late King of Poland, had bequeathed large estates to the three Tatay brothers in gratitude for their faithful service, but that these estates were granted to the brothers for their lifetimes only, after which they would revert to members of the Báthory family, of which Elisabeth was one of the few surviving. Although we do not know the details of Gáspar Tatay’s parentage, we can reasonably suppose that he may have resented the loss of his family’s temporary fortune and held a grudge against the Countess.14

  By judiciously arranged marriages, by petitioning the King and frequently by force, the noble Hungarian families were all engaged in a relentless contest to increase their landholdings, enrich themselves and guarantee a secure future for their offspring. If they could choose, their first priority was obviously to acquire land that was cultivable – wine was the most profitable crop, but grain and cattle could bring enormous rewards. As far as the location of estates was concerned, the ideal was that they should be as far as possible from the contested Turkish frontier and also well away from the holdings of more powerful neighbours who might move to annex a village or a few hectares of pasture at any time.

  From the King’s vantage point in Vienna, the priorities were different. The Austrians knew that they could not depend on the loyalty of their subjects who lived in the areas bordering Transylvania, nor could they enforce their rule in the Partium, which they had long since tacitly abandoned to the Prince, but everyone was aware that they would never allow strategic strongholds in the western parts of the Kingdom to fall into the wrong hands.

  One surviving letter, hitherto unknown, confirms that after she had lost her husband, Elisabeth was subjected at least once to the usual attacks by predatory neighbours on the lands held by widows. The letter also shows clearly the uncompromising strength of the Lady’s character. It was dispatched in early 1606 from her late mother-in-law’s castle of Kapuvár to the Transylvanian nobleman Count George Bánffy:

  Magnifice Domine Nobis Observandissime

  God give you all the best. I must write to you on the following matter: My servant János Csimber arrived home yesterday evening, and he reported to me that you have occupied my estate in Lindva. I do not understand, why have you done this thing? Just do not think, George Bánffy, that I am another Widow Bánffy! Believe me that I will not keep silent, I will let no one take my property. I wanted only to let you know this. Ex arce nobis Kapu 3 Feb 1606.

  Elizabeta Comittissa de Bathor

  P.S. I know, my good lord, that you have done this thing, have occupied my small estate because you are poor, but do not think that I shall leave you to enjoy it. You will find a man in me.15

  Elisabeth’s scathing reference is to the widow of another Bánffy, Gáspar, who was conspired against by rapacious relatives and dispossessed after her husband’s death. In her final defiant flourish Elisabeth uses a Hungarian phrase meaning ‘I will be more than a match for you.’

  When she was placed under house arrest at the end of 1610, Elisabeth Báthory’s first thought was to safeguard those of her domains which bordered on the acres of vineyards surrounding the castle of Tokaj, which had once been Bocskai’s and was awarded to Thurzó in gratitude for his part in arranging the 1606 peace. With this in mind, she gave the estate of Szécskeresztúr over into the hands of her son-in-law, George Drugeth.

  While Elisabeth owned the Báthory estates which were her dowry and still governed the huge Nádasdy-Kanizsai inheritance that she had acquired by marriage, she was so well endowed with land scattered all across what remained of the Kingdom that most other nobles were smallholders in comparison. Any one of her score of castles and mansions would have made an honourable seat for a family of substance. She would regularly depart on tours of inspection, visiting most of the larger holdings, but she held court only in the four or five most magnificent and left the others in the hands of factors and stewards. It has been said that the peripatetic existence that Elisabeth led in the years after her husband’s death was made necessary because she had become so notorious in the environs of her castles that she had to go further afield to entice victims for her sadistic practices, but this is unconvincing: local mothers, neighbours and officials continued to send or bring girls to all the courts, and Elisabeth’s constant travelling was forced upon her once she took over her late husband’s role of overseeing the vast estates, the town-houses in Trnava and Piešt’ány and the many farms, and attending to the other duties of a feudal dignitary (under this cover she may also have been travelling for political purposes, too). Once again it seems that the popular imagination has misinterpreted the ‘inexplicable’ behaviour of the aristocrats and the fact that Elisabeth had stepped outside the normal bounds of feminine custom.

  The closest property to Čachtice, situated about halfway between Nové Mesto nad Váhom and the free royal town of Trenčín was the village and castle of Beckov. Sited on the summit of a rock which rises perpendicularly from the flat valley floor and overlooking the fields which open out towards the Danube lowlands, Beckov is today a picturesque pile of ruins. Placed where Bohemia, Moravia and Hungary meet, it had been a point of great strategic importance in the constant wars of the preceding centuries.

  The valley of the Váh is famous for the romantic stories that have grown up around its landmarks, many of them concerning the mediaeval Polish warlord Duke Stibor, who was given tracts of land there by the Hungarian King Sigismund. At Čachtice, Stibor built the first chapel hard by the castle walls and was reputed to have lured travellers into the fortress by offering sanctuary from brigands, then robbing his guests himself and tossing them from his battlements.

  Not far north-west of Sárvár lies the village of Deutschkreuz, in Elisabeth’s day called Creitz by the German-speaking locals, but known to her as Németkeresztúr (the német-prefix, meaning ‘German’, is important to distinguish this possession from the eastern estate of Szécskeresztúr – szécs is an ancient Slavonic word for a clearing – which also belonged to the family). There among low hills lay a vast fortified palace adjoining a lake and abutted by paddocks and an ornamental garden. Not far away another of Elizabeth’s castles, Léka (now Lockenhaus in the Austrian Burgenland) was built on a dramatic hilltop site. It contains a crude iron maiden in which the evil Countess is reputed to have shut her enemies,16 its secret wells were said to penetrate the solid rock down to the valley floor far below, and the Nádasdy crypt beneath the castle is still haunted by Elisabeth herself, who, local people say, will reach out of the darkness to clutch at the arms of visitors.

  On a more massive peak near by in Burgenland stands the impregnable fortress of Forchtenstein, once the property of Elisabeth’s mother-in-law Ursula Kanizsai and today still in the hands of the Esterházys, whose ancestor Count Nicholas, the nemesis of the Thurzós, received it in 1610. Elisabeth is reputed – anachronistically – to have stayed there as Esterházy’s guest and to have indulged in her satanic hobbies in the dungeons whose upper vents can still be seen at the base of the inner walls. Turkish prisoners-of-war laboured for long years in unspeakable conditions to tunnel Forchtenstein’s 142-metre well and it was there, the folktales say, that Elisabeth disposed of her horribly maimed victims when she had tired of them. Forchtenstein’s foundation myth is especially apt in that it prefigures our later drama. The tale tells that the castle, known to the Hungarians as Frakno, was built by a prince named Giletus who had Rosalia his wife thrown into its deepest dungeon as a punishment for ill-treating her serfs while her husband was away.

  North-west of Ecsed and close to Szécskeresztúr was another of Elisabeth’s possessions, the spectacular twelfth-century gothic fortress of Füzér. Füzér castle, which was destroyed during the anti-Habsburg Rákóczi rebellion at the end of the sixteenth century, stood on a rock butte atop a steep rise covered with pines and birches. Below in the flat meadows, small village houses covere
d in vines were scattered among orchards where animals foraged and villagers lounged, lulled by the benign, almost freakishly tropical climate, the beauty of the landscape and potency of the local wines.

  Memories of Elisabeth’s notoriety cling to other stately sites, now mostly in ruins: Buják, where within living memory the occupying Russians took over the maze of underground passageways, the pinnacle at Strečno, and Fogaras in Romania, which had passed into the hands of the princes of Transylvania, but whose name was always attached to the male Nádasdy heir’s titles.

  Even while her husband Lord Nádasdy was still alive and known despite his misgivings to be their faithful subject, the Imperial strategists in Vienna must have looked in consternation at their maps, musing on how they could secure these territories if the shifting allegiances settled once and for all in favour of their enemies. Elisabeth’s brother, the judge Stephen Báthory, died at the very moment when a quarter of Hungary had joined Bocskai’s insurrection and challenged the dominance of the Habsburgs. Among other bequests, the pro-Bocskai Stephen left Elisabeth the fortress of Devín, which stood on a promontory in the Danube, dominating the city of Bratislava and guarding the threshold to Vienna itself, the ‘Red Apple’ coveted by the Turks. It was quite unthinkable that a woman, a widow of questionable loyalties whose late brother and young nephew were in the enemy camp, should be allowed to take possession of this prize, and when Elisabeth at the head of a detachment of her own soldiers rode from Sárvár to lay claim to the citadel, the German burghers of Bratislava, either under direct orders from Vienna or loyally anticipating the King’s wishes, barred her way. The garrison commander refused to let the Countess and her entourage cross the Danube and the ferries at Bratislava were the only means of approaching Devín. Elisabeth had no option but to turn back. There was no question of defying the wishes of the Empire and risking charges of treason, but Elisabeth was furious; she had been deprived of her inheritance illegally and had been personally insulted by the Bratislava authorities. ‘If the Germans can behave thus towards me, they can do this to anyone!’ she stormed to a Transylvanian relative.

  Unquestionably part of Elisabeth Báthory’s offence in the eyes of her peers was that she had too much property, more than the Palatine himself, and too much power, and this would in itself be justification in those times for the confiscation of her land and fortune. The other strongly held view was that property and wealth should be devolved quickly and efficiently to the male children or children-in-law who had need of it to support them in their political duties. The widows had no official responsibilities in society, and so were held not to deserve the possessions they retained. It was only a matter of time before someone – a member of her own family, a rival aristocrat more formidable than Lord Bánffy or an agent of the King – made their move against her.

  Chapter Seven

  A Notorious Dynasty

  Protected in your boundless infamy,

  For dissoluteness cherished, loved and praised

  On pyramids of your own vices raised

  Above the reach of law, reproof, or shame

  John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, Valentinian

  King Stephen Báthory and Prince Sigmund ~ family scandals ~ Count Stephen of Ecsed ~ two literary wantons ~ the events of 1610 ~ the Widow Nádasdy’s testament ~ a letter from the Prince of Transylvania ~ collusion, conspiracy and pleas for mercy ~ the mystery of Megyery ‘the Red’

  To comprehend Elisabeth’s haughtiness, it must not be forgotten that by the time of her birth Báthorys had been holding the highest offices in Hungary and Transylvania for 300 years. They had been warlords, counts palatine, vajdas and voivodes, senior prelates and judges, and they were the richest landowners in the Kingdom. Infamy and glory has been allotted to the Báthorys in equal parts, but much of what was written about them has been a sensationalist or sentimental travesty, the documented events festooned with colourful ribbons of untruth and rags of wishful folk conjecture.

  Of the generation that preceded Elisabeth, Count Stephen (one of many to bear the name), a gifted soldier and later Chief Justice of Hungary, had been instrumental in crushing Dózsa’s peasant crusade, Christopher was made the ruler of Transylvania and Nicholas, an influential humanist, became Bishop of Vác – but there is one Báthory whose name is still displayed today above the doors of universities and charitable foundations in central Europe, whose tomb in the Wawel castle in Craców is piled with fresh flowers and covered with school emblems placed there in his honour by successive generations of students. The object of this veneration is Elisabeth’s uncle, another Stephen Báthory, the King of Poland.

  The Polish Diet, the Sejm, chose this Hungarian nobleman as the country’s first elected monarch after the Jagiełłon dynasty died out and he has been celebrated for presiding over a glorious period in Polish history during which he consolidated the Polish position in the Baltic, defeated the Russian Tsar, Ivan the Terrible, and conquered the key port of Gdansk with the tacit support of Elizabeth I of England, with whom he corresponded and whose merchants he allowed freedom to trade in the region.

  An English report sent from Vienna in 1576 mentions that a certain Baron Swendius ‘thinks much of Báthory’s education, talent, prudence, industry, vigilance’1, and Swendius was in the enemy camp. Stephen had studied at the University of Padua, where he was steeped in the spirit of humanism; he also knew the Habsburg court well, as his family had sent him there at an early age, as was the custom, to gain experience and influence. After the Battle of Mohács, however, he sided with the Hungarian successor King John Zápolya against the Habsburg claimant, Archduke Ferdinand, the brother of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles. Báthory became a diplomat in Zápolya’s court, often travelling to Vienna for discussions and negotiations, later serving Hungary’s next ruler John Sigismund, who also became the prince of the new state of Transylvania. When John Sigismund died, Báthory was the logical choice to succeed him, and he was given the Transylvanian crown. Needless to say, the Habsburgs tried to oppose him and he was able to enter his principality only at the head of an army, in 1572. When the Polish throne fell vacant four years later it was again the Habsburgs who were his rivals.

  Talented though he was, the Poles did not choose Báthory for his personal qualities. Many of the Polish aristocrats did favour the Austrian claimant Archduke Maximilian, but not quite enough to force the issue at the parliament. Even after the French Prince Henri de Valois had been elected and had then abruptly abdicated, the anti-Habsburg faction remained the stronger, so Báthory’s relative obscurity actually aided his claim. The Habsburgs stepped down, consoling themselves with the thought that a weak ruler on their eastern borders was better than one of their stronger western neighbours. The Turks, with whom Poland and Hungary were officially at war, also welcomed a weak and malleable king in Poland. Both the Austrians and the Ottomans regarded Transylvania as their personal fiefdom; both courts knew Báthory personally; and both thought that, once open hostilities had died down, they could pressure him into doing their bidding. In particular the Turks had supported Báthory in his claim to Transylvania, and hoped to collect their debt in the form of influence in Poland. A report in the Foreign State Papers in London says: ‘The Turk was never more peaceful than now, since he has gained the kingdom of Poland, which seems to open to him all the way to Saxony and Silesia.’2

  As is often the case, the compromise candidate proved to be a resolute leader and an expert tactician, playing the Turks and Austrians off against each other and making overtures to France and England. His wars against the Russians and the exploits of his generals were celebrated even in English broadsheets. Stephen also showed a trait which other members of his family, particularly Elisabeth’s nephew Gábor, shared – a limitless ambition that was tinged with megalomania. He dreamed of creating a central and eastern European empire which would not stop at Transylvania, the Romanian Principalities and Poland, but would ultimately absorb all of Hungary, the Baltic States and Russia itself. Although
such a vision may seem on the face of it impossibly grandiose, in the violent flux of international politics at that time it was a scenario that might have come about despite the Habsburgs and the Turks, providing death from disease or assassination did not intervene. A version of this picture – of a new dynastic European empire with the Báthorys at its head – tantalised the family members who came after Stephen as well as their supporters and protégés, and it may have sustained Elisabeth Báthory as she intrigued on behalf of her nephew Gábor.

  King Stephen Báthory was an undoubted success as a statesman and as a military leader, and, almost uniquely, the stories told of his exploits from the seventeenth century to the present reflect the approval of those who decide the reputations of historical figures. For the Báthory princes who followed Stephen and tried to emulate him, neither fate nor remembrance was as kind. The tragicomedy of the career of the great King’s nephew, Sigmund Báthory, was just as characteristic of the family and the time. This ‘handsome, stalwart weight-lifter and swordsman’3 ruled Transylvania between 1581 and 1597, when his regime collapsed in ignominy and confusion. Sigmund was the son of Christopher, the younger brother of King Stephen of Poland and Transylvania, and much, perhaps too much, was expected of him – the curse of all the Báthory males. The late King had died childless (his consort, Anna Jagiełłowska, the Hungarians said had been ugly, old and barren) and the family had decided that of the new generation Sigmund was to be the ruler, Balthasar the soldier and Andrew the diplomat and man of God.