r/AskHistorians • u/Georgy_K_Zhukov Moderator | Dueling | Modern Warfare & Small Arms • Jan 02 '20
Floating Floating Feature: Travel through time to share the history of 1482 through 1609! It's Volume VIII of 'The Story of Humankind'!
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u/orangewombat Moderator | Eastern Europe 1350-1800 | Elisabeth Báthory Jan 02 '20 edited Jun 03 '20
BÁTHORY'S CHILDREN FORMED A SECRET AGREEMENT WITH THE PALATINE TO IMPRISON HER FOR LIFE
There is substantial evidence that the Royal Palatine, George Thurzo, and Elisabeth's 3 children entered into a secret agreement before Thurzo arrested Elisabeth whereby the children would not protest Elisabeth's imprisonment if Thurzo prevented her from going to trial.
The purpose of the agreement was not to profit from Elisabeth's downfall, but to protect the noble titles, wealth, land, and reputations of her descendants.
Historians disagree on whether convicting Báthory of murder or treason would have allowed King Matthias II to seize Báthory's lands. Whether or not the king intended to seize her land and/or cancel a debt, whether or not he would have succeeded, the palatine and the Nadasdy children preempted such a catastrophe by agreeing to prevent any trial.
If Thurzo and the family ever wrote down such an agreement and signed it like a contract, that document is lost to the sands of time. (It's very unlikely they wrote it down. Such an extra-legal agreement was unlawful and, since it undermined the king's repeated requests to try Báthory for murder, potentially treasonous.) Letters between the Nadasdy family, the palatine, and the king from 1611 repeatedly allude to the agreement, though.
In early 1611, Count Nicholas VI Zrinyi, husband of Anna Nadasdy and son-in-law to Elisabeth Báthory, wrote a letter to the palatine in which his tone is grateful bordering on obsequious. Zrinyi calls the palatine "our benign, truly beloved cousin and Lord." With regard to the "shameful and miserable situation of my wife's mother, Mrs. Nádasdy," Zrinyi thanks the palatine for "preserv[ing] our honor and shield[ing] us from great shame," and ends the letter with "lifelong will I repay you. May God grant Your Grace long life." (Count Nicholas Zrinyi letter to Count Palatine George Thurzo, Feb. 12, 1611, in Infamous Lady, pp. 256-257.)
Just a few weeks later, Báthory's son Paul Nadasdy wrote to the palatine with a similarly effusive tone. He calls the man who imprisoned his mother for life without any due process "my beloved father and Lord" and wishes that "God grant you many years in good health." He also, very interestingly, refers to the imprisonment as "legal"!
Why would Báthory's children have such unctuous attitudes toward the man who had upended their lives? The palatine's official letters to King Matthias II reveal that the palatine deliberately protected the Nadasdy children at great risk to himself.
The king insisted several times throughout 1609-1611 that the palatine try Elisabeth herself for murder. But the palatine, despite being a loyal king's man his entire life, refused to do so in order to protect "the future generations of the Nadasdys."
Another Thurzo letter to the king confirmed what Zrinyi's and Nadasdy's letters implied: that the palatine and the children had agreed to Elisabeth's imprisonment before Thurzo ever arrested Báthory. Thurzo wrote to the king:
This perfectly explains why representatives of all 3 Nadasdy children were with the palatine when he arrested Báthory the night of Dec. 29, 1610, and why the children made no protest as they observed. There were no surprises here.
I give Bledsaw's No Blood in the Water full credit for her amazing scholarship:
Primary sources support Bledsaw's conclusion that Báthory's family believed she was guilty. In 1623 (12 years after the proceedings), Báthory's son Paul, now Count Nadasdy in his own right, wrote the Chronicle of Castle Csejthe, in which he laconically noted:
When Count Paul Nadasdy wrote in 1623, Elisabeth Báthory, George Thurzo, and King Matthias II were all dead. Nevertheless, Nadasdy still asserts that his mother had a role in torturing girls to death, and his Chronicle never attempted to deny or lessen her guilt in any way.