Juraj V Zrinski was born in Csáktornya
Kingdom of Hungary (today
Čakovec, a town in the
Međimurje County, the northernmost county of
Croatia). He was the grandson of one of the greatest Croatian
Ban,
Nikola IV Zrinski, who died in the tragic and heroic
Siege of Szigetvár (), at a town in the western Hungary where the
Ottoman invasion to
Vienna had been stopped. He was the son of Count
Juraj IV Zrinski,
Master of the treasury in the
Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia, and Countess Sofija Zrinski
née Stubenberg. Educated in
Protestantism, he later turned to
Catholicism and "purified" his estates from
Lutheranism. On 15 November 1622 Zrinski was appointed
Ban of Croatia. At that time, he was widely recognized as a brave and courageous warrior. He fought the
Turks in many battles. His wife Magdalena née Széchy bore him two children:
Nikola Zrinski and
Petar Zrinski, who both later became distinguished Croatian bans and died a violent death. Juraj Zrinski died in a military camp near
Pressburg, during the
Thirty Years' War. His chivalry and rapier-tonguedness were, unfortunately, a thorn in his superior's, general
Albrecht von Wallenstein's, side and von Wallenstein had Zrinski poisoned after a verbal duel in 1626. At age 27 the ban was buried in
Pauline monastery of
Sveta Jelena (
St. Helen in English) near Čakovec, next to the graves of his ancestors. ==References==