A Transylvanian prince married his way onto Poland's elected throne
When the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth needed a king in 1575, nobles hostile to the Habsburgs found an unusual solution: elect Anna Jagiellon, sister of the last king, as 'King', and have her marry Stephen Báthory, a Hungarian noble ruling Transylvania. He reigned barely a decade yet ranks among the Commonwealth's most successful monarchs.
Báthory came into the world on 27 September 1533 at Somlyó castle, today Șimleu Silvaniei in Romania, into the powerful Hungarian Báthory family. Little is known of his early years beyond a brief visit to Italy around 1549, when he probably heard lectures at Padua. He then fought the Turks for Emperor Ferdinand I, until he was captured and Ferdinand refused to pay his ransom. Báthory promptly switched sides, serving John II Sigismund Zápolya in eastern Hungary as lord, commander and diplomat. On one trip to Vienna he spent two years under house arrest, and his rival Gáspár Bekes took his place at court.
After Zápolya died in 1571, the Transylvanian estates chose Báthory as voivode. Bekes, backed by the Habsburgs, contested the result, but Báthory won the ensuing civil war by 1573, and later crushed another challenge at the Battle of Kerelőszentpál. He tried to strengthen Transylvania by playing the Ottomans and the Holy Roman Empire against each other.
Poland's throne fell empty in 1572 when Sigismund II Augustus died childless. The first elected successor, Henry of France, soon went home to take the French crown. In December 1575 a pro-Habsburg faction proclaimed Emperor Maximilian, but Chancellor Jan Zamoyski and others resisted, and Báthory sweetened his candidacy with pledges including 200,000 florins and ransoms for captives held by the Tatars. He married Anna and was crowned on 1 May 1576, leaving Transylvania to his brother Christopher.
His early reign was a struggle. Maximilian nursed internal opposition and prepared to fight, the port of Gdańsk rebelled, and Lithuanian representatives withheld recognition until he agreed to hold assemblies in both countries and reserve top Lithuanian offices for Lithuanians. His greatest triumph came mid-reign, when he drove back a Russian invasion in Livonia and won the favourable Peace of Jam Zapolski. He died on 12 December 1586.
Source: Stephen Báthory
