She lost her mother only 11 days after her birth and grew up in Gotha at the court of her father and his second wife Karoline Amalie von Hesse-Kassel.

Sankt Wendel, in the Principality of Lichtenberg, was assigned as her new residence (it was an exclave of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha; see Sotnick on this period), and Louise was forced to leave her two sons behind.

Seven months later, on 18 October 1826, Louise secretly married in Sankt Wendel her former lover, the Baron Alexander von Hanstein (later created Count of Pölzig and Beiersdorf).

In her previous marriage, she had taken great interest in the social life of the principality and was revered as its Landesmutter (literally, "mother of the region").

Years after her death, Queen Victoria described Louise in an 1864 memorandum: "The princess is described as having been very handsome, though very small; fair, with blue eyes; and Prince Albert is said to have been extremely like her".