[1] Lady Elizabeth was born and baptised on 6 January 1588,[1] in Knowsley, Lancashire, the third and youngest daughter, and co-heir of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby, Lord of Mann, and Alice Spencer (4 May 1559 -January 1637).

As the great-great-granddaughter of Mary Tudor, Duchess of Suffolk, the younger sister of King Henry VIII, Elizabeth became, after the death of her grandmother, Lady Margaret Clifford in 1596, third in line of succession to the English throne.

[1] They made their principal home at Ashby de la Zouch Castle, Leicestershire, where the earls of Huntingdon had their family seat.

Forty-six of her letters (written from 1605 until late 1632), which provide a keen insight into her life and personal sentiments, survive in the Hastings Collection of the Huntington Library.

[5] In one of these letters, she described a visit to the royal court where she watched the rehearsals and final production of a masque, at which she was kissed by both King James and Queen Anne.

[8] Elizabeth died on 20 January 1633, shortly after her 45th birthday,[9] at Whitefriars, London, at the home of her brother-in-law, John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater.