Elizabeth, comtesse de Gramont (née Hamilton; 1641–1708), was an Irish-born courtier, first after the Restoration at the court of Charles II of England in Whitehall and later, after her marriage to Philibert de Gramont, at the court of Louis XIV where she was a lady-in-waiting to the French queen, Maria Theresa of Spain.

She appears prominently in the Mémoires du comte de Grammont, written by her brother Anthony.

[8] Her father was Scottish, the fourth son of James Hamilton, 1st Earl of Abercorn, and would in 1660 be created baronet of Donalong and Nenagh.

[9] Her mother, Mary, was the third daughter of Thomas Butler, Viscount Thurles, and a sister of the future 1st Duke of Ormond.

[c] In 1640 Ormond granted Elizabeth's father the manor, castle, town, and lands of Nenagh for 31 years, in lieu of the still unpaid dowry.

[20] He defended Nenagh Castle in November 1650 when it was attacked and captured by the Parliamentarian army under Henry Ireton on the way back from their unsuccessful siege of Limerick to their winter quarters at Kilkenny.

[25][26] She then left for Paris with her mother, who would find shelter in the convent of the Feuillantines, together with her sister Eleanor Butler, Lady Muskerry,[27] while she was sent to boarding school at the abbey of Cistercian nuns of Port-Royal-des-Champs, near Versailles.

[28][29] The abbey also was a stronghold of Jansenism, a Catholic religious movement that insisted on earnestness and asceticism but which was later declared heretic for its position on grace and original sin.

[30] Having left school, she was associated with the court in exile of Henrietta Maria, the dowager queen, Charles I's widow, who had fled to France in 1644 and had in 1657 moved to the Château de Colombes, near Paris.

[31] In March 1660 she met Sir John Reresby at the celebration of the Restoration organised by Henrietta Maria at the Palais-Royal in Paris.

So she made fun of Margaret Bourke, a rich heiress, whom her cousin Lord Muskerry had married, by making her believe that she had been invited to a masquerade by the Queen and had to disguise herself as a Babylonian woman.

[40] When courted by the Duke of York, the future King James II,[41] she doubted the sincerity of his intentions as he had just married Anne Hyde in 1660.

[42] Finally, in January 1663, appeared on the scene Philibert, chevalier de Gramont, a French exile.

[60] The story is partly proven wrong since he married her before Louis allowed him to come back, but it could well be true that a bit of pressure from her brothers was needed.

It has been said that this incident suggested to Molière his comedy Le mariage forcé, first presented on 29 January 1664,[61] but this idea clashes with the known dates.

She went with her husband to France[70] and was appointed in 1667 dame du palais or lady-in-waiting to the French Queen, Maria Theresa of Spain.

[73] Her husband nevertheless pursued his gallant exploits to the close of a long life, being, said Ninon de l'Enclos, the only old man who could affect the follies of youth without being ridiculous.

[74] In 1679, at the death of his elder brother Henri, who had appointed him his heir,[75] her husband became comte de Toulongeon.

[83] In May 1703, when she was 61, Louis XIV lent her a house near the end of the Gardens of Versailles, called Les Moulineaux,[84][85][86][e] which she renamed Pontalie.