Marie and her younger sister Augusta, who became German Empress, received a comprehensive education, which focused on the courtly ceremonial duties they were to have as adults.

The court was very receptive towards literature and other art forms, due to the influence of the late Duchess Anna Amalia, who had died in 1807.

Marie was 16 years old when she first met her future husband, Prince Charles of Prussia, in Frankfurt an der Oder in 1824.

King Frederick William III was in favour of Charles marrying Marie and immediately contacted the courts in Saint Petersburg and Weimar to negotiate a marriage arrangement.

An ally in her quest to paint Elisa as lower nobility was Grand Duke George of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, brother of Charles and William's late mother Queen Louise.

Negotiations had already lasted more than two years when Maria Feodorovna managed to persuade her daughter to agree to a marriage between Charles and Marie, without putting any conditions on William.

Marie's sister Augusta and Charles' brother Wilhelm (William) gave in to dynastic pressure and married two years later.

William regarded his wife as an "outstanding personality", but also as less charming than her older sister; he wrote "the Princess is nice and clever, but she leaves me cold.".

Charles and Marie ran a fashionable household, surrounding themselves with high society, unlike the sober Wilhelm and intellectual Augusta.

[1] Marie loathed both her sister and her successor Victoria, Princess Royal (married to the then Crown Prince Frederick).

On 7 December 1865, King William I appointed Princess Marie as Royal Colonel of the First Westphalian Field Regiment No.

Her son Frederick Charles was a General of the cavalry during this war and had commanded the Prussian troops during the decisive Battle of Dybbøl.