Stephen Báthory

Prince of Transylvania (r. 1571-1575) and king of Poland (r. 1575-1586)

• Born: September 27, 1533
• Birthplace: Szilágysomlyó (Simleul Silvaniei, Romania)
• Died: December 12, 1586
• Place of death: Grodno, Grand Duchy of Lithuania (now Hrodno, Belarus)

Stephen Báthory enjoyed remarkable success, first, as prince of an autonomous Transylvania and, second, as king of Poland. He stabilized both countries and defended them from their external foes.

Early Life

Stephen Báthory (BAH-tawr-ee) was the son of a former vajda (royal governor) and a member of one of the most powerful families in late medieval and early modern Hungary. He was born soon after a significant moment in the history of the region.

On August 29, 1526, at Mohács, the Ottoman sultan, Süleyman the Magnificent, defeated the Hungarians and dismembered the sprawling medieval kingdom. Thereafter, Hungary was divided into three components: an Ottoman province, governed by the pasha of Buda; “Royal Hungary,” a truncated northern section, ruled by the Habsburgs from Pozsony (Bratislava, Slovakia); and the autonomous principality of Transylvania, with its capital at Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia, Romania).

The vajda of Transylvania enjoyed an ambiguous status as vassal of both the Ottoman sultan and the Habsburg emperor, but if he were politically deft, he could be virtually autonomous. John Zápolya, scion of a powerful family of local magnates, ruled Transylvania from 1526 to 1540. After his death, his wife, Isabella, governed intermittently on behalf of her son (1540-1559), John Sigismund, who ruled from 1559 to 1571, and died childless. The Transylvanian Estates then elected Stephen (István) Báthory as vajda on May 25, 1571.

Báthory had served as a page to the Hungarian primate, Archbishop Pál Várday of Esztergom, visited the Habsburg court in Vienna, and was a student in Padua. Returning to Transylvania, he entered the service of Isabella and her son, beginning as castellan of Nagyvárad (Oradea, Romania) and acquiring a reputation as a formidable military leader. In 1565, on a mission to the Habsburg court, he was arrested under obscure circumstances and spent the next two and a half years as a prisoner of Maximilian II in Prague.

Experience confirmed him as a lifelong Catholic and as implacably anti-Habsburg. Well-educated, prudent, and intelligent, he was widely acclaimed for his military prowess; when John Sigismund died, the Estates enthusiastically elected him vajda. A longtime rivalry with Gáspár Bekes (1520-1579), whom Maximilian supported with German mercenaries, led to civil war. Báthory won a decisive victory over his rival on July 10, 1575, at Kerelöszentpál (Sinpaul, Romania), and Bekes fled to Habsburg territory. Kerelöszentpál contributed substantially to Báthory’s reputation and his subsequent election as Polish king.

As prince of Transylvania, Báthory proved a strong, independent-minded ruler. His determination, however, to keep the Habsburgs out of Transylvania forced him to pursue a pro-Ottoman program. Under him, the principality enjoyed considerable prosperity and his court at Gyulafehérvár brought a measure of Renaissance Humanism to Transylvania. However, the extinction of the male line of the Polish Jagiellon dynasty offered a larger stage for his talents.

Life’s Work

In 1576, the year in which Stephen Báthory became king of Poland, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the largest state in Christendom west of Muscovy, extending from the Baltic almost to the Black Sea. The Union of Lublin (1569) had united the two components, but profound tensions remained unresolved: between Poles and Lithuanians, between a king who sought to rule and a nobility that desired him only to reign, between magnates and gentry (comprising between 5 percent and 10 percent of the population), and between Catholics and non-Catholics.

In 1572, the last Jagiellonian king, Sigismund II Augustus , died without issue. It fell, therefore, to the Sejm (parliament) to elect a new sovereign. The first choice, Henry of Valois, younger brother of the French king, Charles XI, proved a disaster, for on learning of his brother’s death, he fled to France to claim the throne as Henry III. The election of another king hardly a year after the previous one unleashed a crisis. Rival candidates included Stephen Báthory, Emperor Maximilian II, Ivan IV (the Terrible) of Muscovy, Alfonso II of Ferrara, and John III, the Vasa king of Sweden. The senate, composed of the great officers of state and the leading magnates, urged on by the papal nuncio, formally elected Maximilian II, while the gentry, bitterly anti-Habsburg and anti-German, chose Báthory, impressed with his warlike reputation.

Báthory’s bid was further helped by the support of the Ottoman sultan Murad III (r. 1574-1595), who underscored his preference by ordering the pashas of Buda and Temesvar to mobilize 100,000 men along the Habsburg frontier. Maximilian II procrastinated; Báthory did not. He appointed his brother, Christopher, viceregent of Transylvania, and with twenty-five hundred Transylvanian troops, he rode hard for the border. On March 23, 1576, he made his state entry into Kraków, and on May 1, 1576, he was crowned in the cathedral along side his fifty-three-year-old bride, Anna Jagiellonka, sister of the late Sigismund II Augustus. Civil war and foreign invasion had barely been averted.

Báthory’s triumph was partly due to one of the most remarkable figures in Polish history: Jan Zamoyski (1542-1605). He helped Báthory to power and was subsequently made crown chancellor (1578-1605) and grand crown hetman (head of the army, 1581-1602). He thereby controlled both domestic and foreign policy. Spokesperson of the middle-ranking gentry against the great magnates, Zamoyski himself amassed great wealth. Báthory’s well-placed confidence in him exemplified a notable trait in the king’s character: However implacable to opponents, he knew well how to select first-rate men for his service and then give them his full confidence. This was also the case for the Lithuanian Palatine Mikołaj Radziwill and his son, Christopher, and most remarkably, his old adversary from Transylvanian days, Gáspár Bekes, who joined him in Poland to become one of his most loyal and successful generals.

Báthory proved one of the most impressive Polish monarchs. In particular, he brought to a victorious conclusion the long, costly and destructive Livonian War (1558-1583), originally embarked on by Ivan the Terrible to acquire Livonia and give Muscovy an outlet to the sea. Initially, the czar’s forces had met with great success, but as the years passed, the conflict ground to a stalemate. Between 1578 and 1582, however, Báthory pressed ahead with ruthless energy to reform the army, forming an impressive body of infantry. These were to face the Muscovite streltsy, or musketeers. Light cavalry were provided mainly by Ukrainian Cossacks, for the first time formally integrated into the Polish service under their own hetmans. A formidable artillery arm was also developed.

Preeminently practical and politically astute, Báthory brought with him on campaign skilled mapmakers and a field printing press. His cartographer, Stanisław Pachlowiecki, was later rewarded for his services by ennoblement, as was Reinhold Heidenstein (1556-1620), a chancery clerk turned historian, who wrote a laudatory history of the reign, as well as an account of the war. The new formed army had to be paid, but the Sejm was not inclined to be generous. Báthory, however, proved as formidable a fiscal reformer as a military organizer. He nearly doubled the royal revenues between 1576-1577 and 1585-1586, doing almost as well for the public revenues.

With his new army, he soon saw the tide turn in Livonia, although the campaigning was exceptionally savage and fought in harsh conditions. Notable successes were the capture of Düneburg on the Western Dvina in 1577; the Polish storming of Wenden in 1578; and the capture of Polotsk in 1579 and of Velikiye Luki in 1580. The Siege of Pskov, which cut the lines of communication between Moscow and Livonia, was Báthory’s gamble to assert military superiority before financial support from the Sejm ran out. Fortunately, Muscovy was even more exhausted, and at Yam Zapolski (1582), Ivan the Terrible agreed to a ten-year truce: Poland kept Livonia and Polotsk. Despite his achievement in securing the commonwealth’s frontiers, Báthory earned little gratitude from his subjects. By the time of his death at Grodno in 1586, he had become a figure more feared than loved and, in the eyes of some, a tyrant.

Significance

Stephen Báthory, one of the most effective rulers of Counter-Reformation Europe, established the Principality of Transylvania, which under later rulers Gábor Bethlen (r. 1613-1629) and György Rákóczi (r. 1630-1648) enjoyed a golden age of independence. In Poland, he proved the most formidable of the commonwealth’s elected kings, strengthening monarchical institutions in the face of aristocratic faction, reforming the army, and beating back the Muscovites.

Bibliography

Butterwick, Richard, ed. The Polish-Lithuanian Monarchy in European Context, c. 1500-1795. New York: Palgrave, 2001. A useful anthology reflecting current scholarly thought. Includes bibliographical references and an index.

Davies, Norman. God’s Playground: A History of Poland. 2 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. An excellent general history. Volume 1 specifically deals with Polish history from ancient times to 1795. Includes illustrations, bibliography, and an index.

Fedorowicz, J. K., ed. and trans. A Republic of Nobles: Studies in Polish History to 1864. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Useful collection of scholarly essays. Includes illustrations and an index.

Jasienica, Paweł. The Commonwealth of Both Nations: The Silver Age. Translated by Alexander Jordan. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1987. The first volume of a three-volume series completed in 1992. A leisurely narrative of Báthory’s period.

Köpeczi, Béla, ed. History of Transylvania. Translated by Péter Szaffkó et al. Translation edited by Bennett Kovrig. 3 vols. Boulder, Colo.: Social Science Monographs, 2001-2002. Volume 1, “From the Beginnings to 1606,” provides excellent coverage of Báthory’s early career. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.