Princess Elizabeth, the seventh child and third daughter of George III and Queen Charlotte, was born at Buckingham House on 22nd May 1770. She had a cheerful temperament and was the closest of all to her mother. She was a talented artist and a series entitled The Birth and Triumph of Cupid from 1795 was engraved by Tomkins and published at George’s expense. She shared with her father a love of agriculture, and ran her own model farm at Windsor. As with all the princesses she suffered from a very restricted social life. She formed a strong attachment to the diplomat, Alleyne FitzHerbert, Lord St. Helens, and commissioned a portrait of him from Bone. In 1808 she was obliged to turn down an offer of marriage from the Duke of Orleans on account of his Roman Catholicism, but was finally married aged forty-eight to Prince Frederick of Hesse-Homburg. Her husband succeeded as Landgrave in 1820, and Elizabeth settled happily in Homburg, free from the rigidity of English Court etiquette which she found irksome.
