RedHanded - Bonus Patreon Upcycle - Elizabeth Báthory: The Blood Countess

Episode Date: January 2, 2025

As RedHanded takes a festive pause, we've picked two of our favourite Patreon Bonus episodes from 2024. To get a full-length, bonus episode of RedHanded every month – plus weekly video episodes of Under the Duvet and much more besides – head to Patreon.com/redhanded and sign up. Or, head to patreon.com/redhanded/gift to buy a membership for someone else!--For our second upcycle, we dive into the dark and twisted tale of Elizabeth Báthory: Hungary’s infamous ‘Blood Countess’. Was she, as the spooky stories claim, a sadistic vampiress who sacrificed virgins in her quest for eternal youth? Or could she have been an innocent victim of a medieval smear campaign?Join us as we unravel the truth behind the eerie myths surrounding one of history’s most bloodthirsty figures.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramXVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. I'm Afua Hirsch. I'm Peter Frankopan. And in our podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we're looking at the life of the most famous Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. Her death is seemingly more well-known than her life, but her journey from the daughter of the Austrian emperor

to becoming the most hated woman in France is just as fascinating. So we're going to look at the ways in which her story was distorted during the French Revolution and dig deeper into her real experiences in a troubled, difficult time. Marie Antoinette is one of the most well-recognised but least well-understood names in history. And we'll talk about how her death led to the way that she was spoken about in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries.

Follow Legacy now from wherever you get your podcasts. Or binge entire seasons early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. love our podcast, British Scandal, the show where every week we bring you stories from this green and not always so pleasant land. We've looked at spies, politicians, media magnates, a king, no one is safe. And knowing our country, we won't be out of a job anytime soon. Follow British Scandal wherever you listen to your podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to your Halloween Patreon bonus episode. I am staggered it has taken us this long. I know. I don't know why. I guess it's always like, let's just wait. I feel like it's, and this probably highlights my ignorance and historical unprowess, but in my head,

Vlad the Impaler, Bluebeard, Elizabeth Bathory, all the same. Yes, and I think we did Vlad the Impaler last year and that's why we were like, we've got to save Elizabeth. And it is now her time to shine. And you might have heard of Elizabeth Bathory, the vampirish femme fatale of medieval Central Europe.

The legend goes she was a pampered royal who bathed in the blood of virgin maidens to achieve eternal youth. A ghoulish ten-step skincare routine, but there was just one ingredient, and that was blood. And you might think that given her royal status, Elizabeth Bathory wouldn't dream of getting her dainty hands dirty. But you, my friend, would be incorrect. If the contemporary reports about her infamous reign of terror are true,

which they might not be, then Elizabeth herself conducted the torture and mutilation of hundreds of young women inside the walls of her various castles, just because she wanted to. Full disclosure, the case that we are about to talk to you about is incredibly old. So needless to say, there's a lot of debate as to what is actually historically true. As always, we're aiming to give you the big picture of Elizabeth Bathory's reign of terror with an emphasis on what can be proven. But we'll also tell you about the hearsay and rumours

because who doesn't want to hear all the juicy 16th century gossip? So this tea, despite being incredibly old, is still piping hot with historians bickering over the case even today So this tea, despite being incredibly old, is still piping hot, with historians bickering over the case even today, as well as dropping explosive new theories. A friend of mine, when we were at uni, was doing a history degree and she was having, you know, the classic library breakdown in exam season. And she was like, I just think just think you know were you fucking there no so you don't fucking know do you i mean the best tagline for history

so let's get into it our story takes place between the 16th and the 17th century across what we would now call slovakia and also hungary but in the middle ages central europe was carved into lots of little kingdoms that shifted allegiances as often as most people changed their socks. Large swathes of land were ruled by noble families like, for example, the family of our dubious heroine. Bathory Erzibet, or in English Elizabeth Bathory, was born on the 7th of August 1560 into a high-ranking noble family within the Kingdom of Hungary. Elizabeth's uncle, Stephen, was the literal king of Poland, and her family was one of the oldest and most established in the region.

They were kind of the Kardashians of their day. They had power and money and serious influence. And also a catchy name, because Bathory actually means good hero. That is good. of their day, they had power and money and serious influence. And also a catchy name because Bathory actually means good hero. That is good. Derived from the Hungarian word battle, meaning brave. And true to form, the House of Bathory boasted a lineage

of fierce warriors. According to local legend, their founding father was a folk hero named Vitus, who slayed a dragon terrorising citizens near Esked Castle, with just three thrusts of his lance. As a reward for his bravery, Vitus was granted this castle, and by the 1560s, little Elizabeth was running around the place,

like it was her own personal playground. Now she may have inherited her ancestors' tenacity, but Elizabeth also got their bloodlust. Because what she got up to over the next four decades wasn't exactly good hero stuff. Elizabeth spent most of her childhood in the castle airscape. She was raised by a series of governesses, naturally. Just like now, the royals had absolutely no interest in raising their own children.

But Elizabeth's childhood was not particularly idyllic, even though she was loaded. Violence was woven into daily life back then, and that applied to the nobility as well. One story we've got is about how little Lizzie watched in awe as an accused criminal was sewn into the stomach of a dying horse by her father's men and then left in there to die. This sort of punishment wasn't particularly unusual. The aristocracy and landed gentry were notorious for treating their servants like utter shit, and that will be an important theme in your bonus today. Even from childhood, Elizabeth was apparently prone to fits of rage and tantrums, and this erratic behaviour, according to some sources, could have been partially down to her genes. Elizabeth's parents were Baroness Anna Bathory and Baron George Bathory.

I think you can see the problem, especially when I tell you. The Baroness's name is her maiden name. Yes, they were indeed cousins. It's not a family tree, it's a wreath. Yes. Many of Elizabeth's family members reportedly had mental health problems, although they weren't understood as such at the time, and conditions like epilepsy, which some historians speculate Elizabeth also suffered from.

Incest or not, this was a notorious bunch of tyrants for whom cruelty and aggression were absolutely the norm. And witnessing all of this at that tender age had a profound effect on Elizabeth, although not in the way you might expect. But more on that later. When Elizabeth was 13, scandal struck. Allegedly, that's when Elizabeth got pregnant.

And since the baby-dazzy was a local peasant boy, her family promptly paid a local woman to take the child away. Now, these rumours only arose long after Elizabeth's death, so take that with some salt. But, bastard baby or no bastard baby, Elizabeth moved on with her prospects intact. And why wouldn't she? Elizabeth was beautiful, rich, well-educated,

which was quite unusual for a woman at that time. She actually spoke several languages, Hungarian, German, Latin and Greek. So marriage-wise, pretty good. And everyone was having secret babies. And her future was set in stone anyway. Elizabeth was already betrothed

to Count Fenech Naratsi, the kingdom's most eligible bachelor. Rather than a love match, this was actually just a politically fortuitous arrangement. Of course it was. It was the 16th century. It was all just a politically fortuitous arrangement. Of course it was. It was the 16th century. It was all just a play to consolidate land ownership

between Transylvania and the Kingdom of Hungary. Fennec's father was the Palatine, basically the Prime Minister of the Kingdom, but Elizabeth's family outranked his by so much that she kept her surname and he took on hers. The couple were married in 1575, when Elizabeth was just 15 years old, in a lavish wedding with over 4,000 guests in attendance. Like we said, the Kardashians of the era.

Considering she hadn't had any particular choice in this marriage, Elizabeth was pretty pleased with the way things turned out. She and Fennec got on like a house on fire. And one thing they particularly had in common with each other was a passion for tormenting servants. Her husband taught Elizabeth new and inventive ways to bully her staff, and soon the student became the master. It's always nice if you can find a hobby you both enjoy. The couple

that torture together stay together. I don't know. It's working out, you know. Marriage is hard. Yeah, marriage is hard. Elizabeth reveled in coming up with darkly appropriate punishments for various misdeeds. If a girl pressed her clothes in a way that she didn't like, she'd press a hot iron to her cheek. If a servant messed up some sewing, then Elizabeth would scratch that servant's face with needles, etc. In short, she was a nightmare of a boss.

The Meghan Markle of her day. Hey man, before anyone comes to me go read the Hollywood Reporter they've detailed it all so between 1585 and 1598 Elizabeth gave birth to five children Anna or Soya Catelyn

Andress and Paul Paul you'd be pissed wouldn't you apparently there is a character in House of the Dragon who's just called Adam from Hull Andress. And Paul. Paul, you'd be pissed, wouldn't you? Apparently there is a character in House of the Dragon who's just called Adam from Hull. And my old housemate is Adam from Hull. Now, not much is known about Elizabeth's kids, even down to the fact of if they survived infancy. But she was surprisingly described as a good mother who cared deeply for her brood.

Despite them being all raised by a governess, obviously. But again, I don't think we can hold her to a modern day account. She's just doing what is normal for the time and her status as a woman of high birth. I'd love a governess. I need a governess. Oh my God. For myself. Please. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made a seductive

city where many flock to get rich be adored and capture america's heart but when the spotlight turns off fame fortune and lives can disappear in an instant when tv producer roy radin was found dead in a canyon near la in 1983. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. From Wondery, I'm Raza Jafri, and this is The Spy Who. This series, we open the file on Ayman Deen, the spy who betrayed Bin Laden. In 1994, 16-year-old Ayman wants to die. He heads to Bosnia to join the Mujahideen and save his fellow Muslims. He hopes to become a martyr.

Instead, he's about to be confronted by a cruel and bloody reality. Follow The Spy Who now wherever you listen to podcasts. And Elizabeth was kept busy with far more pressing matters than childcare. Since her husband Fennec was a famous warrior with the nickname The Black Knight, spending most of his time away at battle against the Ottoman Turks. Elizabeth was left in charge of managing the family's financial and political affairs. Like her namesake Elizabeth I, who was girlbossing all over England at the time, the Countess exercised significant power and had a shrewd head for business.

In January 1604, bad news happened. Elizabeth's husband died at the age of 48, which for the time and for being a warrior, pretty good going. Some stories say that he had become paralysed due to complications from an old battle injury, while more florid tales claim that the wound came from a scorned harlot that he didn't pay. On his deathbed, he entrusted his close confidant, George Thurso, who was now the Palatine, the Prime Minister, to keep an eye on his widow and his heirs. And Thurso kept his promise, but probably not in the way his dying friend was hoping for. Elizabeth's now

a grieving widow and showing no signs of slowing down. Actually, if anything, she ramped things up a gear. Left to rattle around her primary residence, Kachetaj's castle in Slovakia's Little Carpathians mountain range, her daily torment of the serving staff was getting a little stale. Now you might expect a noblewoman in her position, lonely, bored and in mourning, to entertain herself with ladylike pursuits like painting or needlework. Or maybe at least shag a footman or two.

But this desperate housewife took matters to the next level. Scholars generally agree, after Fennec's death, Elizabeth escalated from casual abuse of servants to a murderous campaign that left a trail of bodies behind her. Death, Elizabeth found, just hits a little different. On to the gory bit that you've all been waiting for. Testimony from Elizabeth's accused accomplices, several members of her trusted staff, presumably the ones that she didn't iron the faces of,

or maybe she did. These accounts paint a pretty grisly picture of what went down in their mistress's chambers. Elizabeth viciously beat girls until their bodies turned black like charcoal. She'd burn their skin with red hot pokers and spoons. She'd flog them with whips and stuff them in tiny cages with spikes. She'd pinch and pull skin from their bodies with hot tongs, cut off fingers and toes one by one, stick needles into every available inch of skin. She'd slip

veins with scissors. And sometimes she'd force girls to cut off chunks of their own flesh. And she also had some seasonal variations. In summer, she would smother a girl in honey and leave her to be bitten and stung to death by insects, while in winter she would douse her servants in water and let them freeze. And there's also a perverse bent to all of this abuse. Girls would mostly be stripped totally naked during their torture sessions, and Elizabeth was known to focus much of her wrath on their sex organs, inserting hot rods into vaginas and burning pubic hair and pricking vulvas with needles.

But a common theme throughout all of this abuse was blood. So much blood. So much so that according to the accomplices, Elizabeth regularly had to change out of her saturated clothes and have the walls of her chamber hosed down. The blood on the floors was so thick that they had to put down ashes to soak it all up. All in all, it was an absolute house of horrors. What are your thoughts on the vampire facial? I don't know if i'm if i'm there no i just mean as a concept i don't mean would i do it to get one um i don't know enough about it

if it works and i think it's your own blood yeah definitely is your own blood so you take your own blood and then they like centrifuge it and then they like push it back into your face or something listen if you got the money and you're that bored go do it i guess if you want to but i don't know if it works or not is my question so we just ran you through some of the stuff we think we know that elizabeth was getting up now, but what did people know at the time? Well, the widow contest did have quite a reputation for cruelty amongst local villages. There were lots of rumours about the countless peasant girls who went to work at the castle and never came home. Another eerie sign that was picked up on was the disproportionate number of coffins seen leaving Elizabeth's estates. But ironically, local outrage seemed to focus on the lack of proper Christian burial rights,

because there were just too many bodies to keep up with. All things considered, Elizabeth had a pretty sweet arrangement. Wealth, land, and an endless parade of young female victims with no real threat of any sort of consequences. But like so many killers before her and after her, Elizabeth just couldn't help taking things a little too far if we don't think that she's already done that. Her downfall can almost certainly be traced to her decision to widen the victim pool. Sometimes that is your biggest mistake.

It is. That I'm not paying your taxes. It is. Possibly in a bid to raise household funds, since her husband Fennec was no longer around bringing home the spoils from the Ottomans, Elizabeth opened up the castle as a gynoceum. Despite sounding like a place you'd go and have a smear test done This was actually a sort of finishing school for the daughters of noblemen Where they'd learn etiquette and domestic skills and how to give blowjobs and stuff

And maybe, just maybe, Elizabeth might have had good intentions at first but I doubt it. She couldn't resist the urge to start torturing all of these girls that were suddenly in her house and killing them too. The noble girl's absences had alarm bells ringing far more than her low-born victims. Just like the Yorkshire Ripper who started out killing loads of sex workers and nothing really happened it wasn't until he killed a quote-unquote innocent girl that people started to care Elizabeth did exactly the same she pushed her luck

and the walls began to close in with disturbing rumours spreading through noble circles King Matthias II finally ordered George Thurzo to investigate the Countess in 1610. Thurzo and his men conducted a raid on the castle on the 30th of December, where he claimed to catch Elizabeth in the act of torturing a girl. His later testimony paints a bloody picture of a castle littered with corpses, barely alive victims and various torture mechanisms. Although historians reckon some of this might have been a little bit embellished, like a guy telling a story to his mates in the pub.

Interestingly, Elizabeth's surviving grown-up children, Anna and Paul, were fully aware of the investigation into their mother and even gave their consent to the raid. Turns out blood isn't that much thicker than water after all. As witness reports started flooding in with rumours of an impossibly high kill count, it became clear that Elizabeth Bathory had been a very busy girl. She wasn't doing it alone, though. She had help.

Elizabeth had assembled a sinister torture squad consisting of several of her close mates. And they've all got Hungarian names, and I'm gonna try. There was Helena Jo, Dorothea Dorka

Sentes, Janos Juvary, who was apparently known as Fixko, and that means little fellow, because he was short, Erzi Marojevova, and Katerina Benica. Whether these people were all willing participants in the torture parties or whether they were pushed into it because of the uneven power dynamic, we will never ever know.

But all of them did work for Elizabeth, so you could argue it's quite likely. One of this group refused to testify against Elizabeth Bathory, a misstep that led to her having her eyes gouged out and breasts torn off before being thrown onto a pyre. The rest of them all talked. And once they were done talking, it didn't really matter. They were brutally executed for good measure too. Apart from Katerina, because it seemed the most likely that she had been bullied into what she had done. Katerina got off with life imprisonment, which probably wasn't much better than being executed in the grand scheme of things. I know which one I'd pick. While the servants all dropped Elizabeth in it, they also implicated a

woman named Anna Davulia as being the instigator of a lot of the torture. Davulia is a nebulous figure in Bathory stories. She's described as a healer, a midwife, an advisor, or local witch, depending on who you ask. I mean, they're all basically the same thing. Mm-hmm. Interpretations of the crew's testimonies has led some to speculate that Anna could

have been Elizabeth's tutor in evil, encouraging her to make the transition from torture to straight-up murder after Anna joined the household in the early 1600s. Now, annoyingly, Anna D'Avoglia died of suspected tuberculosis before Elizabeth Bathory was caught, so she could never give her side of the story. But whether or not Elizabeth was under the spell of this mysterious woman, there's just one more hair to split. Because it was obvious that the Countess had committed plenty of atrocities

with her own lily-white hands. Especially the fact that Anna D'Avoglia dies, and she's still doing it. And according to Thurso, and again, you know, we're saying everything, take it all with a pinch of salt, says he caught her in the act. And Anna's already dead. So yeah. you know, we're saying everything, take it all with a pinch of salt, says he caught her in the act.

And Anna's already dead. So yeah, if all of these stories are to be believed, then yes, we would call Elizabeth Bathory a serial killer. And a prolific one at that. But this is where things get quite tricky. It wasn't technically against the law for a noble to kill a servant back in the tapestry times. That sort of thing, according to academic Rachel Bledsoe, was considered gauche, but not really legal in noble circles. Gauche, I love that. So perhaps the craziest thing about the Bathory case isn't that she committed these acts at all, but that if it wasn't for those pesky noble women, she would have got away with it too.

Now this might explain why, while her accomplices were executed, Elizabeth was never even tried. Keen to avoid any sort of public scandal, The Crown quietly stripped the Countess of her assets and locked her up for life in Catch Tice Castle, ironically the place where she committed most of the crimes. She wasn't allowed to leave, but could otherwise move freely around the castle. Basically, they stuck an ankle tag on her and called it a day. Yeah, and probably why, I mean, and also the hundreds of years old it is,

if she's never put on trial, there's no, like, record of charges, I suppose. It's like the bullying investigation that the Queen ordered into Meghan Markle and then had sealed. It's all come full circle. So, yeah, basically, George Thurzo said, quote, so yeah basically george thurzo said quote you elizabeth are like a wild animal you do not

deserve to breathe the air on earth nor to see the light of the lord you shall disappear from this world and shall never reappear in it again the shadows will envelop you and you will find time to repent your bestial life big Big words, big dramatic statements for, like, something that's not even going to go to trial. But, you know, George Thurzo, he's there for it. He's got a lot to say. But Elizabeth had nothing but time. She remained in prison at Catchhise Castle for the next four years. Until on the 21st of August, 1614,

she complained to a guard that her hands felt cold. Advised to suck it up and get some sleep, she went to bed and never woke up. Her death at the age of 54 brought to a close a bloodstained chapter of Hungarian history. But Elizabeth Bathory's legendary status was just beginning. While official records about her were sealed for about 300 years, that didn't stop her

from appearing in countless gnarly folktales from the region. Even today, she's in the Guinness Book of World Records as the most prolific female killer of

all time they claim 650 victims no way that's crazy i thought to be in the guinness book of world records it had to be like a hundred percent proven i also think that that's how it should be and if it isn't that's a concern and also why is the guinness book of world records got a section for the most number of murders i don't think that's something they should have in there i mean i would be lying if i said it wasn't the section i always looked for i get it and i get that's why they've gotten but it feels like the guinness book of world records should be like an aspirational thing yeah it feels a bit ripley's believe it or not doesn't it doesn't it you don't believe in ghosts i get it it. Lots of people don't. I didn't either, until I came face to face with them. Ever since that moment, hauntings, spirits, and the unexplained have

consumed my entire life. I'm Nadine Bailey. I've been a ghost tour guide for the past 20 years. I've taken people along with me into the shadows, uncovering the macabre tales that linger in the darkness, and inside some of the most haunted houses, hospitals, prisons, and more. Join me every week on my podcast, Haunted Canada, as we journey through terrifying and bone-chilling stories of the unexplained. Search for Haunted Canada on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music,

or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. Anyway, whatever we think, the Guinness Book of World Records has stated that figure as a fact, but it just isn't that simple.

They based it on the testimony of a peasant girl whose name is susanna and she claimed that her boyfriend had seen a ledger written by elizabeth listing all of her victims oh well thank god yeah doesn't get more he said she said than that and also literally nobody has ever found that diary if it ever existed also accomplices confessed under torture to participating in murders between the 30 and 60 mark although they might play down that figure and also they're being tortured so they're going to say whatever aren't they thurzo's investigation suggested 80 to 100 victims which might seem small compared to Susanna's claim of 650, but it is a lot. Even the most conservative estimates still put Elizabeth way up on the leaderboard for

female serial killers. Her twisted sisters would have a fair bit of catching up to do, but they gave it a bloody good go. Of course, there is Victorian baby farmer Amelia Dyer, dubbed the Ogoress of Reading, who was confirmed to have murdered six babies in her care, but suspected of up to 400. Then you have Juana Barraza, a Mexican serial killer, with a luchador alter ego. She called La Dama de Silencio, the Lady of Silence.

And she offed at least 16 elderly women in the early 2000s, although her actual number could have been closer to 40. We're all interested in why killers kill, but female murderers have their own special place in our notebooks. Analysis of women's motives to kill quite often focus on gender stereotypes like the spurned lover, the bunny boiler, warped maternal instincts or vanity, jealousy, that's another big one for women. And Elizabeth Bathory is no stranger to this analysis either. In 1729, Jesuit priest Laszlo Taruzzi wrote that villages near Bathory's castle told him stories about her,

the wicked countess who bathed in the blood of her victims in a bid to make herself beautiful. No account prior to his had ever mentioned blood baths, other than figuratively, but these gruesome spa treatments have gone on to become the most enduring part of Bathory law. German literary scholar Susan Cord notes that there is hardly an account, fictional or not, that doesn't refer to the blood baths. An English writer, John Padgett, twisted the knife in 1839

by inventing Liz's villain origin story. Apparently, after hitting a young servant in anger, the Countess noticed that the place where blood had spilled on her hand looked whiter, softer and more young. I remember that. That's the one I know. And in a totally legit move, she then decided to start killing her female workers for their blood, quote, urged on by that worst of women's weaknesses, vanity. This urban legend spread like wildfire

and was cemented by cinematic portrayals like 1971's Countess Dracula or 2008's Bathory, Countess of Blood and even more recently, Lady Gaga hamming it up on the fifth season of American Horror Story. Its popularity ironically holds up a mirror to how even modern society finds it hard to make sense of a woman committing grisly murders

needing to give her a traditionally feminine rationale perhaps. I mean, it's complicated. I think, like, the idea of female serial killers and what they do kill for and how they kill. I think there is something more shocking when it is a violent, bloody murder committed by a woman. Because traditionally that isn't typically what women do when they do kill. But yeah, I guess the question is, couldn't Elizabeth just have been a bloodthirsty bitch? But at the same time, I guess the question is, couldn't Elizabeth just have been a bloodthirsty bitch? But at the same time, I don't... I wouldn't totally write off the fact that she was doing it just to bathe in the blood

and stay looking white, soft and whatever. Quite a popular branch of Bathory folklore is the belief that she was a vampire with links to the big man himself, Count Dracula. We can see the similarity. They're both nobles, they've got links to Transylvania, they like blood loads. But maybe we're just looking at things a bit backwards. Blood is now integral to the Bathory legend. But was it really such a big thing for her?

Or a gruesome byproduct of her campaign of terror? Yeah, I suppose that depends, isn't it? It's the process product situation. And honestly, the vampification of Elizabeth Bathory is just another example of society possibly trying to dehumanize people we'd rather not acknowledge as our own. As we've covered in our shorthand on the history of werewolves, which you should definitely check out, medieval folks couldn't get their heads around the idea of mortal men

and women being so twisted that they must be. Witch slash werewolf slash insert generic monster here. Recent years have shown a boom in people who are firmly Team Elizabeth, though. Some scholars reckon that she was

wrongly accused or simply misunderstood. Dr. Gabor Varkonyi argues that far from trying to injure the girls in her castle, Elizabeth was trying to heal them. This argument is that she wasn't torturing them. She was just doctor-ring them. Bloodletting did happen, I guess.

I don't know. I'm not going to give her that. Yeah, this does feel a little bit too charitable, even for the most soft-hearted of us. But a genuinely compelling argument could come from the notion that a lot of people had a lot to gain by getting Elizabeth out of the way. She had significant power and influence over many lands, not to mention she had a lot of money. Rumours have persisted that the king owed the Bathory clan a huge debt,

almost 18,000 golden, the equivalent of several millions of dollars today. Though the existence of this so-called loan is questionable and not something we can totally back up. But if there was a loan, getting it written off would certainly be a happy result

for the Crown. I think we can all agree that one of the major problems is that a vast majority of the witness statements against Elizabeth aren't actually eyewitness accounts. Which, fair enough, they're dead. But it does mean that quite a lot of what we think we know about Elizabeth Bathory is compiled from fragments of gossip, basically, and passed down through the ages. And we all know how rumours take on a life of their own, grow legs and then run off into the distance until the final story doesn't even slightly resemble what actually happened.

So maybe the Elizabeth Bathory story that we all know is just a case of Hungarian whispers. It's possible that troubling allegations could also have been planted by a rival entity who wanted to bring Elizabeth down and let the rumour mill do the rest. Some sources have suggested that George Thurzo, the man responsible for capturing Elizabeth, had form for stitching up his rivals. But would a political foe go to all the trouble of crafting such an elaborate lie?

Maybe. Dr. Anouchka Bailey of Cambridge University certainly seems to think so. She argues that Elizabeth's immense political power meant that she needed not only to be shut up, but to be erased from the history books and turned into some sort of bogeyman. If true, it would mean that Elizabeth Bathory

was the victim of a bloody smear campaign that changed the course of history forever. I think that's my favourite one, you know. Yeah, I mean, possibly. It's just, it's funny though, because if that was the thing, it completely backfired because it cemented her into the history books.

As a baddie though. As a baddie though. I don't know. I think it could be multiple things you know i think she could just have been somebody who had a sadistic streak to her but i don't think she killed you know hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people i think that would have been noticed far sooner and she wouldn't have been able to get away with it for as long but i don't find it difficult to buy that she was sadistic and possibly even did torture and end up killing some people.

But I also think it's entirely possible that on top of that, they just wanted to get rid of her. Dr. Bailey also raises some interesting questions about women's role in male-dominated histories. Which brings me back to the point that my friend made whilst having a mental breakdown in the library can we trust anything we read in the distant past or not so distant or any past at all no i think it's like history's fun but uh all of these people making these claims i also think with history there is this real tendency for people to look at it through the lens of like what's acceptable today and like how we view things today without any realistic understanding of what things were like then and all we can do is speculate but with very limited knowledge quite speculation will just have to do we're never going to be able to definitively say what went

down in those castles across central europe but it has cast a dark shadow over the region that continues to attract horror fans even now. The castle's a museum these days. Wife, whore, mother, torturer, murderer or martyr, whichever of these words you want to use to describe Elizabeth Bathory, there just isn't going to be an answer to satisfy our bloodthirsty curiosity

because we weren't fucking there and we don't fucking know. And that's history. That's history for you. Happy Halloween. Also, I went to see Beetlejuice yesterday and the castle that we went to in Transylvania

that is like the inspiration for Dracula's castle is in the film. They go there. And they got a much better shot than us I bet so I would recommend

that for your holiday season perfect and we will see you next month with something that is still quite scary and upsetting

goodbye bye So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Huh. Fancy. She's a big carbon tax supporter, yeah? Oh yeah, check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it.

That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution.

I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is The Rise and Fall of Diddy. Listen to The Rise and Fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery+.