[1] After the death of her mother in 1551, she as well as her siblings were placed in the care of Christina Gyllenstierna and then under her aunts Brita and Martha Leijonhufvud before her father's remarriage to Catherine Stenbock.

In 1556, she and her sisters were given a dowry of 100,000 daler, had their portraits painted and their personal qualities described in Latin by the court poet Henricus Mollerus, and presented on the Dynastic marriage market.

During the Northern Seven Years' War, she apparently showed generosity to Danish and German officers kept prisoners in Sweden.

[2] At the dethronement of King Eric XIV in 1568, Duke Magnus II of Saxe-Lauenburg, consort of her sister Princess Sophia, took her, Sophia and Queen Dowager Catherine by boat from the royal palace of Stockholm, to abandon Eric by joining the rebels, headed by Prince John in Uppsala.

However, it is noted, that the suspected conspirators Hogenskild Bielke, Gustaf Banér and Pontus De la Gardie, often gathered at meetings in the apartment of Princess Elizabeth, meetings where Princess Cecilia of Sweden had also frequently been seen, and the two sisters and their brother Charles were somewhat compromised though they were never accused.

[3] The French ambassador in Denmark, Charles Dancay, was given the task of providing a portrait of Elizabeth and gave the following report of her character: "I have been assured that she is very beautiful, has good sense, that she is pleasing, has a good figure and posture ... everyone recommends her great humility, in truth Sire, everyone that knows her admires and honors her virtues ... She finds her pleasure at the spinet and plays it better than most, she also plays the lute, and she is also of a mild and soothing temperament.

By all regarded as one of the most accomplished and most virtuous princesses in Europe, and that no one had heard of any fault, physical nor in the mind" In January 1575, the French envoy Claude Pinart visited Sweden to see Elizabeth, but as she was with her brother Charles in Nyköping, the princess refused to join John III in Stockholm to meet with Pinart who instead had to travel to Nyköping to see her.

In 1576, John III sent Count Pontus De la Gardie to Italy to negotiate a marriage between Elizabeth and the Duke of Modena, or failing that, find another available Italian Prince.

The purpose was to strengthen the bond between the Pro-Catholic King and the Pope as well as to make it easier for him to obtain an Italian inheritance from his mother-in-law, Bona Sforza.

Elizabeth herself participated in the negotiations personally to ensure her economical rights, assisted by her siblings Charles and Catherine, while King John accepted the marriage mainly because he saw it suitable that she marry because of her age.

The marriage was delayed because of religious reasons: the staunch Protestants Elizabeth and Charles were careful to defend that the wedding ceremony and everything regarding it should be Lutheran against the Pro-Catholic John III.

Elizabeth had the Augsburg Confession translated for the first time to Swedish and printed to the guests at the wedding, likely as a way of demonstrating against the Pro-Catholic policy of John.

She also demanded to be given her dowry, which had never been paid, and wished to discuss a proposal of marriage from John Frederick of Brunswick-Lüneburg with Charles.