Dracula In 1983, McNally additionally suggested that Stoker was influenced by the history of Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who allegedly tortured and killed between 36 and 700 young women. It was later a commonly believed rumor that she committed these crimes to bathe in their blood, believing that this preserved her youth. Báthory's castle was also located in the Carpathian Mountains, just as Dracula's, albeit in a different region. In her book "The Essential Dracula", Clare Haword-Maden suggested that the castle of Count Dracula was inspired by Slains Castle, at which Bram Stoker was a guest of the 19th Earl of
Women in the military in Europe the English Civil War. Charles I's consort, Henrietta Maria of France was the last English queen to command troops in battle in northern England in 1643. During the 1776 American War of Independence, it is estimated that over 5,000 women accompanied British forces. Many of these would have been the wives of high-ranking officers, with a large proportion being the wives of serving soldiers. While as much as possible women were left in the camp, they sometimes accompanied forces in their baggage trains serving as cooks or nurses, and were occasionally caught in combat and killed or taken prisoner. Similarly