Zrinski

The Zrinski were a cadet branch of the Croatian Šubić tribe. In 1347 King Louis I of Hungary exchanged the family's Bribir estates for the castle of Zrin in Slavonia; George, grandson of Ban Paul I Šubić, moved there and became the first to style himself Zrinski, meaning of Zrin.

The house grew into the foremost noble family of Croatia during the Ottoman wars. In 1547 it moved its seat to Čakovec, and Nikola IV Zrinski, Ban of Croatia, died defending Szigetvár against Suleiman the Magnificent in 1566.

Nikola VII Zrinski won fame as a general and a Hungarian poet, while his brother Petar and Petar's wife Katarina led Croatian resistance to Habsburg centralism. Petar Zrinski and Fran Krsto Frankopan were executed for the Zrinski-Frankopan Plot in 1671, and the male line died out before the end of the century.