The daughter of the 9th Earl of Sandwich and American heiress Alberta Sturges, she grew up at Hinchingbrooke House in Huntingdon and was educated at North Foreland Lodge.
When war broke out in Europe, she volunteered as a nurse, heading the casualties department at St Thomas' Hospital in London.
Her paternal grandfather, Rear Admiral The Honourable Victor Montagu, was an officer in the Royal Navy and a godson of Queen Victoria.
On her mother's side, Lady Elizabeth was the granddaughter of Betty Leggett and a descendent of the American judge Jonathan Sturges.
She was a grandniece of Josephine MacLeod, who, like her mother and grandmother, was a devotee of the Hindu monk and philosopher Swami Vivekananda.
"[2] During World War II, Lady Elizabeth volunteered as a nurse and was head of casualties at St Thomas' Hospital in London.
[1] Sir John Rupert Colville wrote in his diaries that, while off-duty from hospital work, Lady Elizabeth "talked a lot of nonsense about religion and the ineffectiveness of our propaganda in America.
[1] English critic and book reviewer John Davenport called the novel "strangely compelling... a study of a woman who is self-righteous to the point of mania.
[1] In 1958 she translated Carl Zuckmayer's 1955 drama Das kalte Licht (The Cold Night) from German to English.
[1] Lady Elizabeth was an art collector, collecting works by Graham Sutherland, Sir Sidney Nolan, Frank Auerbach, and Michael Andrews.