I just watched the full movie on Youtube called, The Blood Queen (it's free) and
thought I would give some historical background and bring up the question
of whether really she did kill 650 children (as claimed in the beginning of the movie);
or was it all made up and had nothing to do with her being a malevolent person at all.
Be sure to watch to the end to get the truth about the so-called Blood Queen.
Let's begin. From 1590 to 1610, a countess named Elizabeth Báthory,
allegedly tortured and killed hundreds of poor servant girls and women in Hungary.
But was she actually guilty of these heinous crimes?
In the early 17th century, rumors began to circulate around the village
of Trenčín in present-day Slovakia. Peasant girls looking for servant
work in Csejte Castle were disappearing, and no one knew why. But before long,
many locals began to point their fingers at Countess Elizabeth Báthory.
The countess was a descendant of a powerful Hungarian family and the product of inbreeding
between Baron George Báthory and Baroness Báthory, who called the Csejte Castle home.
She had received it as a wedding gift from her husband,
the famed Hungarian war hero Ferenc Nádasdy.
By 1578, Nádasdy had become the chief commander of the Hungarian
army and embarked on a military campaign against the Ottoman Empire,
leaving his wife in charge of his vast estates and the governing of the local populace.
At first, all appeared to have been well under the countess's leadership. But as time went on,
rumors that the countess tortured her servants began to spread.
And when her husband died in 1604, these views became much more widespread — and dramatic.
She would soon be accused of not only torturing but
killing hundreds of girls and women who entered her castle.
Today, Elizabeth Báthory is infamously remembered
as the “Blood Countess” who killed up to 650 girls and women in the Kingdom of Hungary.
If all the stories about her are true, then she is likely the most prolific and
vicious female serial killer of all time. But not everyone is convinced of her guilt.
So this is what we know about how Elizabeth Báthory’s Alleged Crimes Began.
10 Elizabeth Báthory was born on August 7th,
1560 and raised in a noble Hungarian family hence she knew a life of privilege from an early age.
And some say she would later use that power to commit heinous acts.
According to witnesses, Elizabeths's crimes took place between 1590 and 1610, with most of
the vicious murders happening after her husband’s death in 1604. Her first targets were said to have
been poor girls and young women who were lured to the castle with the promise of servant work.
But as the story goes, the countess didn’t stop there. She allegedly expanded her sights and began
killing daughters of the gentry who had been sent to Csejte for their education. She also supposedly
kidnapped local girls in the area who would never have come to the castle of their own free will.
As a wealthy noblewoman, Elizabeth evaded the law until 1610.By
that point, she had reportedly killed multiple victims of noble birth,
which concerned the authorities far more than the deaths of servants. So, Hungarian King Matthias
II sent his highest-ranking representative to investigate the complaints against her.
He is said to have collected evidence from some
300 witnesses who leveled a bevy of truly horrifying charges against the countess.
According to the contemporary reports and the stories told long after the
events , Elizabeth Báthory, tortured girls and young women in unspeakable ways.
She allegedly burned her victims with hot irons, beat them to death with clubs,
stuck needles under their fingernails, poured ice water over their bodies and left them to freeze to
death outside in the cold, covered them in honey so that bugs could feast on their exposed skin,
sewed their lips together, and bit off chunks of flesh from their breasts and faces.
Witnesses claimed that Elizabeths’s favorite
method of torture was using scissors to mutilate her victims’ bodies and faces.
She supposedly used the instrument to cut off their hands, noses,
and genitals. She sometimes even used scissors to slice open the skin between her victims’ fingers.
Those horrific acts of violence (and the sometimes supernatural legends that surround the crimes)
help define Elizabeth Báthory’’s terrifying legacy today. At the time of her investigation,
some accused her of being a vampire, while others claimed to have seen her have sex with the Devil.
The most infamous accusation (the one that inspired her nickname, the Blood Countess)
claimed that Elizabeth Báthory bathed in the blood of her young victims in an attempt to
maintain a youthful appearance. But although this story is by far the most memorable,
it’s also extremely unlikely to have been true. According to a source,
this claim didn’t even appear in print until after she’d been dead for more than a century.
Considering the mythologized elements of the blood countess' alleged crimes,
it begs the question of how much of her bloody story was actually true;
and how much was made up just to take a powerful and wealthy woman down.
So Was Elizabeth Báthory Really a Blood Thirsty Countess?
After hearing the accusations, Elizabeth was charged with the deaths of 80 girls.One witness
claimed to have seen a book kept by Báthory herself, where she recorded the names of all
of her victims (650 in total). This diary, however, appears to have only been a legend.
When the trial ended, Báthory’s alleged accomplices (one of whom had worked as
a wet nurse for the countess’ children) were convicted of witchcraft and burned at the stake.
Elizabeth herself was spared from execution due to her status as a noble.
However, she was bricked up and isolated in a room at Csejte Castle,
where she remained under house arrest for four years until her death in 1614.
But the case against the so-called blood countess may not have been as cut and dry as it seemed.
In fact, some modern Hungarian scholars say that it may have been motivated more
by others’ power and greed than her supposed evil.
It turns out that King Matthias II owed Elizabeth and her late husband, a sizable debt. Matthias was
not inclined to pay that debt, which historians say may have fueled his move to incriminate the
countess in multiple crimes and deny her the opportunity to defend herself in court.
Likewise, some historians say that witnesses probably provided the
incriminating yet contradictory testimonies under duress and that the king called for
the death penalty before Elizabeth’s family could intervene on her behalf.
Thistoo may have been politically motivated,
as the death penalty meant that the king could seize her land.
Perhaps, historians say, the true story of Elizabeth Báthory looks more like this.
The countess owned strategically important land that increased her family’s already vast wealth.
As an intelligent, powerful woman who ruled without a man at her side, and as a member
of a family whose wealth intimidated the king, his court went on a mission to discredit and ruin her.
The best-case scenario is that Elizabeth Báthory abused her servants but came nowhere near the
level of violence alleged at her trial. Worst case? She was a bloodsucking demon sent from Hell
to murder young women. Both make for a compelling story; even if only one of them is actually true.
So what do you think about all of this?
What is true and what is just legend? And was the blood queen a victim of male dominancce and greed?
Let me know in the comments below, and thanks for watching!