Elisabeth’s early death was rumored to be a result of poison meant for her uncle Emperor Nicholas II, but the court physician said she died of virulent typhoid fever, probably caused by her taking a drink of water from a contaminated stream.

[1] Elisabeth's parents, nicknamed ‘Ernie’ and ‘Ducky’, were first cousins who married at the instigation of their common grandmother, Queen Victoria.

Adults were forbidden to enter "much to the frustration of royal nurses and tutors, who could be seen pacing up and down impatiently outside as they waited for their high-spirited young charges to stop their games and emerge.

"[5] Margaretta Eagar, a governess for the daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, described Elisabeth as "a sweet and pretty child, with wide grey-blue eyes and a profusion of dark hair.

The four-year-old Elisabeth wanted a baby sister and tried to persuade her aunt and uncle to let her parents adopt one of her paternal first cousins, Tatiana or Maria.

[7] When the child heard Queen Victoria’s pony cart approaching on the road below Windsor Castle, the four-year-old Elisabeth ran out on the balcony, waving and calling, "Granny Gran, I’m here!"

After the queen died, the child was taken in to see her body and told that her great-grandmother had gone to be with the angels; "but I don’t see the wings", Elisabeth whispered.

"Sweet little David behaved so well during the service", wrote his aunt Maud, "and was supported by the little Hesse girl who took him under her protection and held him most of the time round his neck.

"[9] In his memoirs, written more than thirty years after her death, her father wrote of Elisabeth’s "deep sensitivity" and "very large heart".

Her mother had rekindled a previous romance with another cousin, her future husband, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich of Russia.

[6] On 6 October 1903, Ernst hosted a large family gathering at Darmstadt for the wedding of his niece, Princess Alice of Battenberg, to Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark.

A few weeks later he took Elisabeth to stay with his younger sister, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, her husband, Tsar Nicholas II, and their family.

At the imperial family’s hunting lodge in Skierniewice, Poland, Elisabeth went on long walks and had picnics in the forest with her cousins.

[6] One morning, the eight-year-old awoke with a sore throat and pains in her chest, which the Russian Court doctor put down to too much excitement with her cousins the previous day.

[16] An autopsy following her death confirmed that she had died of virulent typhoid, although it was rumored she had eaten from a poisoned dish intended for the Tsar.

"How joyous and merry she was that day at Wolfsgarten, when I was there, so full of life and fun and health ... What a terrible heartrending blow for poor Ernie, who doted and adored that little enchantress!