Duchess Elisabeth of Württemberg

Born Elisabeth Wilhelmine Luise on 21 April 1767, she entered the world as a daughter of Württemberg's ducal house. Her marriage to Archduke Francis of Austria repositioned her within the Habsburg sphere, linking two German dynasties at a moment when old Europe's matrimonial architecture still shaped the continent. She became an archduchess, a title that carried weight in Vienna's rigid hierarchy. On 18 February 1790, she died at twenty-two. Her husband would later become Holy Roman Emperor, but she never wore a crown.