Elisabeth's mother, Catherine, was the third wife of Duke Karl Leopold, who had divorced his first two wives after very short marriages (less than two years each). Catherine was the only wife ever to bear him a living child, and Elisabeth was the only child. In 1721, when Elisabeth was three years old, her mother became pregnant a second time, but the child was stillborn. By then, the marriage between her parents was in trouble, and in 1722, Catherine returned to the court of her uncle Peter the Great. She took her daughter with her, and Elisabeth, therefore, grew up in Russia with little or no contact with her father.
