by Tony Thorne
The letter shows that George Thurzó had pressed for the sharing out of the estates to take place immediately, and this could have been in his interest only if he hoped to receive something himself. Could it be that it was the manor of Čachtice and the movable treasures that Elisabeth had taken there that were to be the price of Thurzó’s collusion?
Having warned the Palatine that he would not be allowed to share out the huge prize according to his own whim, Zrínyi crossed the Danube en route to his seat of Monyorókerék, leaving a detachment of his soldiers at Thurzó’s disposal. In December Elisabeth settled down with the ladies of her court to celebrate Christmas. There was great tension in the air in Čachtice, as Ponikenus’ account of the confrontation in the church confirms. Perhaps the Countess did, as her enemies stated, summon her wise-woman, Erzsi, the wife of the Myjava farmer, to bake her magic cakes and cast her spells against the forces that were gathering to destroy her.
On 29 December, the Countess was surprised ‘over the evening meal’. The Palatine’s secretary George Závodský recorded the incident in a brief entry in his journal: ‘She and her lackeys inflicted butchery and torture upon the female sex for long years, and cruelly tormented nearly six hundred . . .’23 He specifically exonerated the other dignitaries who were closest to the Countess: ‘neither Zrínyi nor Homonnay knew of it, nor even Imre Megyery knew . . .’
On 30 December Thurzó arranged his macabre display before the assembled household, then carried off Elisabeth’s assistants to his stronghold at Bytča and to their deaths.
In the last days of January 1611, Count George Homonnay Drugeth, who had done nothing to oppose Thurzó, but who had stayed away until the arrest and trial had been concluded, rode into Čachtice at the head of a band of armed retainers, who accompanied him up the frozen track through the woods to the castle. He was admitted and spoke to his mother-in-law, who instructed him to arrange for funds to support her in her captivity.
The next letter from Lord Nicholas Zrínyi which was carried to Thurzó on 12 February 1611 was very different in tone from his previous note; it was couched in the most respectful terms as befitted a plea for mercy which would no doubt be transmitted to the King himself:
May the Lord bless your highness and all your relatives. I understood the copy of your highness’ letter and also the letter from the King which your highness sent to me. My heart is aching now, which is natural in such circumstances and in such shame that Mistress Nádasdy my lady mother finds herself, as I have heard. And I suffer very much for that, but nevertheless, though it is terrible to hear and horrifying to learn of her activities and deeds, and how your highness has punished her, of the two evils, I think, I needs must choose the lesser one. And besides, what your highness has done with her, this was for our greater good, and for our self-respect and the future of our honour, and for the putting away of the shame which might have befallen. In his Royal Highness’s letters I could likewise apprehend ... it would be better to die and to be nothing, with her relatives and children, too, than to hear of her brazen and horrifying executioner’s work and torture, but your highness as a benevolent and truly loving brother, willing to prevent these shameful things from coming about, found the right means and solution whereby she should be imprisoned for ever and for our good name and our good memory she should be punished. For your highness’s benevolence and your piety and brotherliness, and we would desire to serve you until our death and we will do our utmost to show our gratitude towards yourself. And now we request your highness that your highness should intercede with his Royal Highness on our behalf, so that his Majesty might reconsider his punishment that he wished to inflict upon her, and that his Majesty be content with the punishment that your highness has given her . . . After God our hope lies with your highness, that your highness shall intervene and mediate with his Majesty in the interest of our case . . .24
Zrínyi expected this letter to be passed on to others, as evidenced by his feigned surprise at learning of his mother-in-law’s misdeeds – ‘her brazen and horrifying executioner’s work’. Even if the contents of the earlier secret letter were disregarded, the words do not ring entirely true.
Zrínyi’s missive was followed by a letter from Paul Nádasdy to Thurzó dated 23 February 1611:
I have understood what your lordship has written, what his Royal Highness commanded for your lordship, and as concerns my miserable lady mother. I not only understood, but I myself have also experienced likewise in other affairs many times and in this affair, too, the goodwill of your lordship towards me and towards my sisters. May the Lord grant you, with all my female relatives and also my family with our whole hearts we wish to serve you all our lives. As your lordship wrote to his Royal Majesty with good reason, that first the summons to appear should have been issued, but that it is now too late, as your lordship as the judge of the country has already carried out the necessary examination, and it is not now necessary to repeat this, as the punishment of my poor mother now is much worse than death, and according to his Royal Highness’s order, the taking of her life should be effected, and in what concerns her property, although we have no fears in this respect, since according to her own decision, we three have all received it before her incarceration. But otherwise, we wish with our relatives to entreat with our prayers and we ask his Majesty that with the assistance of the law, because of my mother, for our line and our nation he should not bring eternal shame upon them. But we did not wish to act without news from your lordship, nor without your advice, as this is not meet. It is not customary to act against the will of his lordship the Palatine. I pray and I beseech your lordship, as my lord and as my loving father, that you should give me your agreement and whether you approve or not, [as to] how I should with my sisters proceed [so as] not in any manner to cause trouble or commit harm for your lordship at his Majesty’s court or with his Majesty himself. As per your lordship’s letter, which we have kept always secret, we have understood your intention. I await a good answer from your lordship, as from my loving father and my lord. May God keep your lordship in good health for many long years.25
Paul was seeking the Palatine’s permission to petition the King directly: he knew that the gist, although not the text, of this letter would also be conveyed to the King. In writing as he does, ‘the goodwill of your lordship towards me and towards my sisters’, he recalls that on his deathbed Francis Nádasdy had entrusted his children into Thurzó’s care. He earnestly hopes that there will be no need for a further investigation and possible trial – ‘your lordship as the judge of the country has already carried out the necessary examination’ – even though the Palatine has dispensed with all the other usual legal requirements. The reference to ‘your lordship’s letter, which we have kept always secret’ prove that confidential negotiations with the family had taken place; ‘not in any manner to cause trouble or commit harm’ – the situation was delicate and unprecedented: Thurzó was defying the King on the family’s behalf.
There is no reference by Paul Nádasdy to his mother’s supposed crimes, only to her current predicament. The real purpose of the letter is to underline again the fact that the inheritance had been safely disposed of and to plead for Elisabeth’s life to spare the family shame.
Paul signed the letter with his firm, regular signature, but the twelve-year-old boy had not composed the text. The author was ‘Megyery the Red’ (the sobriquet probably referred to the distinctive colour of his beard), his tutor and guardian, the one man who in the literary versions of the story of the Blood Countess figures on a par with Lord George Thurzó as Elisabeth’s bête noire, a conspirator against her who, it was said, she blamed above all others for her misfortunes and tried to kill with magic.
This was Imre Megyery, who on Francis Nádasdy’s death had been appointed tutor to the young heir, Paul, and who referred to the boy, actually his cousin, as ‘my young brother’. Megyery was the Nádasdys’ representative at the Hungarian parliament’s lower house when it met at Bratislav
a. He was a familiar at the Sárvár court, that is, someone of lesser but still noble rank who was bound to the family by feudal allegiance and a blood relationship. Imre Megyery’s mother, Lady Agatha Nádasdy, was a cousin of the former Palatine Thomas, Elisabeth’s father-in-law. Through his wife, Megyery was also related to the junior branch of the Nádasdy line. He was a relative too of Theodore Syrmiensis, who presided over the investigation of Elisabeth Báthory, and of Caspar Ordódy, the Deputy Governor of Trenčín county, who assisted at the trial of Elisabeth’s servants in 1611. Several Megyerys performed the function of assistants to the most powerful personages of the time: Sigmund Megyery, for instance, was secretary to Palatine Nicholas Esterházy in the mid-seventeenth century.
Although he and his family lived beyond the confines of the castle, Megyery dealt with the Countess on a day-to-day basis during all the time she spent at the Nádasdy seat at Sárvár. Whatever their feelings for each other and whatever Megyery’s links with George Thurzó and his circle (he must have maintained cordial relations with the man named as benefactor, virtually a godfather to his charge), there was ample reason for him to turn against his master’s widow and plot her downfall if he was simply fulfilling his duty to the late Count Francis and to his heir. The ‘tutor’ in the great houses of Hungary was much more than a poor pedagogue: his role was closer to that of mentor and guardian and carried a great deal of power. Perhaps like many in his position, Megyery relished the power that his role as regent gave him while the young Paul – heir to the still intact family honour as well as its vast fortune – was not of age. But he must have been alarmed for himself and for his protégé at the thought of the rogue termagant Elisabeth forfeiting the good name of her late husband and risking the entire legacy. Megyery was a perfect candidate for the role of evil mastermind – the organiser of the subterfuges that hid the investigation from its subject, the orchestrator of the household officials’ betrayal of their mistress – and it was not only later legend but the lady herself who cast him in that role, if Ponikenus is to be believed. It would be satisfying to be able to confirm Megyery in his part as villain – or, if Elisabeth was guilty, as protector of the young heir’s name and fortune – but not enough is known about the man. There is no portrait, no journal that would bring him to life for us. What is known and is surely significant is that when Paul Nádasdy attained his majority, Megyery continued to serve him faithfully in the capacity of chief steward of the family estates.
Chapter Eight
The End of Elisabeth
I would find grievous ways to have thee slain,
Intense device, and superflux of pain.
Algernon Charles Swinburne, Anactoria
The Palatine defies the King ~ the 1611 hearings ~ further exchanges ~ a letter from the fiscus ~ the last twelve testimonies ~ strange consistencies ~ the judicial aspects of the case ~ family relations ~ the Chief Justice upbraids the Palatine ~ the rise and fall of Gábor Báthory ~ Elisabeth’s last declaration ~ death and silence
If the followers of Luther had been entrusted with the Hungarian Palatine’s spiritual wellbeing, we can still see in his character a struggle between the enlightened humanism of Erasmus and the cynical Realpolitik of Macchiavelli. In his correspondence with Matthias, the absentee King of Hungary during the year 1611, Macchiavelli is to the fore, but there is another tension running through George Thurzó’s half of the exchanges between the two men: the need to strike a balance between, on the one side, his loyalty to the holy crown and the Habsburg cause, strengthened by a personal regard for Matthias, and on the other, his patriotic duty as Palatine and as a Magyar noble to protect the remains of Hungary from disintegration or annexation by the Empire to the west. No less than this was at stake while Countess Báthory’s right to life was still in question and the Nádasdy-Báthory inheritance at risk.
Once Elisabeth had been shut into the castle at Čachtice and the bodies of her servants consumed on the pyre, Thurzó sent word to the King. The sovereign Matthias of course had his own agents in Upper Hungary and knew that steps had been taken to isolate Francis Nádasdy’s widow, but he was relying on Thurzó to deal with the matter and keep him informed: communications were slow and the King was preoccupied with strengthening his position in his own Imperial court and with formulating a policy to cope with the aggressive resurgence of Transylvania under Gábor Báthory.
The draft of Thurzó’s message to the King still exists, and it hints that at this point the Palatine was improvising rather than working to a carefully scheduled plan.1 He reports the arrest of Countess Báthory for the murder of up to 300 maidens and asserts that the Lady was caught in the act, prompting Thurzó in his righteous anger to pass his own sentence of life imprisonment on her there and then. The letter includes a brief account of the confessions of the servants, but, intriguingly, in the description of their interrogation by his legal assistants the phrase ‘et tortura’ – ‘and [by] torture’ – has been struck out, probably by Thurzó himself. This would have the effect of adding credibility to the charges, but in reinforcing an accusation of mass-murder would make it even more likely that the King would intervene.
If Thurzó hoped that Matthias would meekly accept this fait accompli and endorse his decision, he was quickly disabused. On 14 January the King responded by issuing a letter which contained the substance of Thurzó’s report, but emphasised the noble rank of some of the murdered girls.2 On the basis of the information he had received, the King decreed that fresh investigations should be carried out in Čachtice, Ujhely, Beckov, Kostol’any, Sárvár, Keresztúr and Léka – the family estates in the north and west – in preparation for a full-scale trial.
On the same date in a separate letter the King requested the Palatine’s advice on how to deal with another member of the Nádasdy family whom he suspected of treasonable sympathies. The noble in question was Count Thomas Nádasdy, cousin to the late Francis, and the suspicion of disloyalty was not unexpected, given that Thomas was living in Gábor Báthory’s court in Transylvania at the time. In his letter Matthias asked Thurzó whether in his opinion there were grounds for putting Lord Nádasdy on trial.3 It is known that Thomas had sought and received permission from the crown before going to Alba Julia, and Hungary was not at war with Transylvania: even if Thomas had not signed the oath of allegiance demanded by Thurzó at the end of the previous year, any trumped-up charges made against him would remind the Hungarians of the blatantly unjust attempt by the Habsburgs to destroy Count Illésházy and would undo all Thurzó’s attempts to keep the Magyars loyal and their estates out of Habsburg hands. Thurzó’s reply has not survived, but he seems to have persuaded Matthias against another show trial.
Where Elisabeth was concerned the King was adamant and Thurzó could not openly defy him, so in response to the demand for a new and thorough inquiry followed by a formal trial, the same Andrew Keresztúry presided over a further stage in the investigations during the first half of 1611. Two hundred and twenty-four new testimonies were heard from witnesses coming from the communities bordering the Váh river including Kostol’any, Čachtice, Beckov and Vrbové.4 The resulting evidence was officially certified on 26 July. Many of the new informants simply confirmed the testimony of fellow-witnesses or stated that they were aware of the Lady’s cruelties and nothing more, but some went into more detail, and a consistent set of accusations emerges.
Michael Fábry, the Kostol’any pastor who gave evidence during the first round of interrogations, appeared again, and amplified his previous statements, saying that he knew that many maidens had been tortured and that the Countess ducked naked girls in icy water in wintertime. In his previous deposition he had said simply that two girls were buried in his parish in secret: this time he affirmed that they had been murdered at Čachtice at the time of George Drugeth’s marriage to Kate Nádasdy. His statements were confirmed by the magistrate at Kostol’any, Thomas Jávorka, who further testified that Elisabeth Báthory put a hot iron into the girls’ genitals. This d
etail was confirmed by the manor clerk, Michael Horváth, who added that two other girls had been buried at Lešetice ‘even during the sitting of the Lord Palatine’s court [the Diet] at Bratislava’ – in other words, as late as October 1610, after the investigations had begun.
A gentleman named Michael Hervojth, an administrator at the castle at Čachtice, said that the Countess tortured girls daily by putting hot iron bars into their vaginas and by whipping them. When the Lady’s daughter, the wife of Lord Nicholas Zrínyi, had come to visit her (in the autumn of 1610), the Lady had had five girls buried in the grain pit. Two other maidens had been buried at Lesetice and one body was buried in a little garden by the manor-house, where dogs had discovered it and dug it up.
Paul Horváth stated that Ficzkó had used planks of wood to construct the coffins for the two girls who had been buried at Kostol’any. These two facts – the burials and Ficzkó’s involvement – were the substance of most of the following testimonies. Matthew Lakatjártó, whose brother had testified in 1610, mentioned the death of the ‘Sittkey girl’ at the hands of (or on the orders of) the Countess.