Sigismund Báthory

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For other nobles of the same name, please see Sigismund.

Sigismund Bathory (1572-1613) (Báthory Zsigmond in Hungarian), Prince of Transylvania and of the Holy Roman Empire, was the son of Christopher, prince of Transylvania, and nephew of Stefan Batory, elected king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Sigismund owed allegiance to the Imperial Habsburgs as a member of the Order of the Golden Fleece.

He was elected prince in his father's lifetime, but being quite young at his fathers death, the government was entrusted to a regency. In 1588 he attained his majority, and joined the league of Christian princes against the Turk. The obvious danger of such a course caused no small anxiety in the principality, and the diet of Turda even went so far as to demand a fresh coronation oath from Sigismund. Upon his refusal to render it, the members threatened him with deposition. Ultimately Bathory got the better of his opponents, and executed all whom he got into his hands (1595).

Bathory had inherited the military genius of his uncle, and his victories astonished contemporary Europe.

In 1595, at Alba Iulia, Sigismund Bathory signed a treaty with Michael the Brave, the Voivode of Wallachia, in which Wallachia came under sovereignty of Transylvania, requiring to Sigismund to send aid to Michael the Brave for fighting the Ottomans.

On August 13, 1595 at the Battle of Călugăreni near the Neajlov river, Michael defeated a Turkish army led by Sinan Pasha. Despite the victory Michael, having too few troops to mount a full scale battle, retreated toward Transylvania. Joining Sigismund Bathory's 40,000-strong army led by Stephen Bocskai, they liberated Târgovişte (October 8, 1595), Bucharest (October 12, 1595) and Brăila. Wallachia was liberated temporarily on October 29, 1595.

The turning-point of his career was his separation from his wife, the archduchess Christina of Austria, in 1599, an event followed by his own abdication the same year, in order that he might take orders. It was on this occasion that he offered the throne of Transylvania to the emperor Rudolph II, in exchange for the duchy of Opole.

In April 1598 Sigismund resigned as Prince of Transylvania in favor of Emperor Rudolf II (the reigning Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary), reversed his decision in October 1598, and then resigned again in favor of Cardinal Andrew Bathory , his cousin. This allowed Transylvania to fall under the influence of the King of Poland. Michael the Brave reestablished an alliance with Emperor Rudolf. Michael began a campagain against Transylvania on October 5, 1599, while the Habsburg general Giorgio Basta entered Transylvania from the west at the same time.

In 1600, however, Sigismund at the head of an army of Poles and Cossacks, he attempted to recover his throne, but was routed by Michael, voivode of Moldavia and Wallachia, at Suceava. In February 1601 the diet of Cluj (Klausenburg) reinstated him, but again he was driven out by Michael the Brave and general Giorgio Basta, never to return. He died at Prague in 1613.

He abdicated three times, twice (1597, 1602), in favor of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II and once (1599) of his cousin, the Cardinal Andrew Bathory. From 1597 to 1598 he was the duke of Opole in Silesia.