Erzsebet Bathory
The template for the modern vampire, and one of the first female serial killers.
Erzsebet (or Elizabeth in English) Bathory was one of the first female serial killers in known history. There was so much gossip about her in the town after her trial, she became an urban legend of sorts. Much of the things that you see online are just made up, or out right lies.
Elizabeth was married early, as was the custom at the time, to someone else in royalty. This much is widely known by everyone. What isn’t known is that during her childhood, she was well-educated for her time and gender. In that era, most women (meaning the majority were the peasant class was the majority, and even most women nobles) weren’t highly educated to both read and write. In Hungary at that time, not everyone could write. Elizabeth could read and write several languages. Showing that she was highly intelligent.
Shortly after she was married, her husband went off to war with the Ottoman Empire, at the time, they were attacking the Hungary borders. So Elizabeth was left to run the many estates of her noble husband. She had to make sure that the bills were paid, and being up kept to society norms. This shows that she was very sane and in control of her faculties.
Of course, she did see her husband on and off, in between his skirmishes, and he brought home a lot of spoils of war. That made them as a family extremely rich. So rich that when the crown of Hungary went broke from the war, they lent the crown a great deal of money so they could continue the war efforts. Now, having the king indebted to you financially in a monarchy puts you in a very good position, you can get away with almost anything.
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