With Gábriel Báthory (r.1608-1613), the last of the Báthorys, we come full circle with the family’s Princes of Transylvania. Whereas the first, Stephen Báthory, was one of the best princes to have ruled Transylvania, Gábriel was one of the most wicked and tyrannical.

Uniquely “gifted” to sabotage his own people, he constantly harassed Transylvanian towns, had properties and people attacked and murdered, driven exclusively by a foolish ambition for absolute power; it was this ambition that finally brought about his tragic end. “A madman with heinous behavior, he attacked the properties and the families of the lords and notables in Transylvania. Those who opposed him he killed, others he sent into exile.” (Kiatip Celebi, Ottoman chronicler).

Gábriel Báthory was keen on changing the political and confessional structure in the Principality of Transylvania, which he considered to be far too complicated to exert his authoritarian control; his main opponents were the free towns – Sibiu, Cluj, Brașov – which were permanently under his attack.

Gábriel Bethlen, his strongest enemy, was appointed Prince of Transylvania in 1613, at Alba Iulia, just as Gábriel Báthory was killed in an ambush by his own soldiers, close to Oradea.  

“In this time, one of the voïevods ordered several gunmen to wait at the pass and kill Deli Kral (the Mad Prince), when he came that way.”(Turkish Chronicles on the Romanian Lands, by Mihai Guboglu).