STEPHEN (ISTVAN) BATHORY king of Poland and prince of Transylvania. Bathory spent his early years at the court of the emperor Ferdinand, subsequently attached him self to Janos Zapolya, and won equal renown as a soldier and diplomatist. Zapolya rewarded him with the voivodeship of Transylvania, where his defence of the rights of his patron's son, John Sigismund, incurred the animosity of the emperor Maxi milian, who kept him in prison for two years. On May 25, 1571, on the death of John Sigismund, Bathory was elected prince of Transylvania by the Hungarian estates, in spite of the opposition of Vienna. He expelled the rival candidate, Gaspar Bekesy, from Transylvania (1572). In 1579 the Polish nobility, at the instiga tion of Zamoyski (q.v.) elected Bathory king of Poland, in oppo sition to the emperor Maximilian, the candidate of the senate. Bathory persuaded the Transylvanian estates to elect his brother Christopher in his stead, hurried to Cracow, espoused the princess Anne, the sister of the last Jagiello, and was crowned on May 1.
The leading events of Stephen Bathory's reign can here only be briefly indicated. All armed opposition collapsed with the sur
render of Danzig, after a six months' siege, on Dec. 16, 1577. Stephen was now able to devote himself to foreign affairs. The difficulties with the sultan were temporarily adjusted by a truce signed on Nov. 5, 1577; and the Diet of Warsaw having voted supplies, Stephen embarked on war with Muscovy. Penetrating to the heart of the country, he besieged Pskov (Aug.—Dec. 1581), and forced Ivan the Terrible to cede him Polotsk and Livonia (peace of Zapoli, Jan. 15, 1582). The chief domestic event of Stephen's reign was the establishment in Poland of the Jesuits, in furtherance of his designs of uniting Poland, Muscovy and Transylvania into one great state. The project was dissipated by his sudden death, of apoplexy, Dec. 12, 1586.
See I. Polkowski, The Martial Exploits of Stephen Bdthory (Pol.; Cracow, 1887) ; Paul Pierling, Un Arbitrage pontifical au xvime siecle (Brussels, 189o) ; Lajos Szadeczky, Stephen Bdthory's Election to the Crown of Poland (Hung.; Budapest, 1887).