Erzsebet Bathory

Erzsebet Bathory 1560-1614 was a Hungarian countess and wife of General Ferenc Nadasdy. She was from a prominent family, being the niece of King Stephen Bathory of Poland and cousin of Transylvanian Roman Catholic bishop Andrew Bathory. She was betrothed to Nadasdy at age 11 and married him in 1575 at the age of 14. During the Long War between the Ottoman Empire and Turkey which her husband was a general in she was responsible for the military defense of his estates. Her husband died in 1602. She was accused of being a mass murderer of her servants, along with four accomplices, and convicted and sentence to life imprisonment by a court appointed by King Matthias of Hungary and her cousin Count Gyorgy Thurzo. However, her guilt is disputed. Lazlo Nagy, a Hungarian historian, claims that she was innocent of the charges made against her and framed because of money she owed the King of Hungary and because of her Protestantism in primarily Catholic Hungary. Although she may perhaps have been innocent, she has been the subject of many movies which portray her as a vampire, such as Countess Dracula starring Ingrid Pitt. However a movie called Bathory starring Anna Friel which portrays her as an innocent victim of the political machinations of the Catholic Church, Thurzo and the King of Hungary was made in 2008.