She was born on 4 June 1633, one of nine children of Arthur, 1st Baron Capel, and his wife Elizabeth, née Morrison.

They had four surviving children: During the 1650s, Elizabeth appeared in several portraits by Richard Gibson and court painter Peter Lely.

The Capel and Carnarvon families were these Royalist artists' main patrons during the Interregnum.

[2] She belonged to a botanical family: her brother Henry Capel gardened at the Kew estate and her sister Mary was a noted horticulturalist.

She is depicted as a young woman holding one of her botanical paintings in a portrait by Lely.