Princess Elisa Radziwiłł
Born	(1803-10-28)28 October 1803 Berlin
Died	27 August 1834(1834-08-27) (aged 30) Bad Freienwalde
Names Elisa Friederike Luise Martha Radziwiłł
House	Radziwiłł
Father	PrinceAntoni Radziwiłł
Mother	Princess Louise of Prussia
Religion	Calvinism

Princess Elisa Radziwiłł (Elisa Friederike Luise Martha;Polish:Eliza Fryderyka Luiza Marta Radziwiłłówna; 28 October 1803 – 27 August 1834) was a member ofPolish nobility (of theHouse of Radziwiłł, who were elitemagnates), of royal ancestry. She was the desired bride of Prince William of Prussia, who later becameWilliam I, German Emperor, but they were not allowed to marry.

Elisa, the daughter of PrinceAntoni Radziwiłł and his wife,Princess Louise of Prussia, niece of KingFrederick the Great and a relative of thePrussian Royal Family, was born in Berlin. Prince William, her second cousin once removed and theheir presumptive of the Prussian throne, met with and fell in love with her.

William was expected to marry and produce further heirs. His father and her kinsman KingFrederick William III were fond of the relationship between William and Elisa, but some in thePrussian court had discovered historical allegations that her ancestors had bought their princely title fromMaximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor. In the eyes of certain people, she was not deemed of sufficiently high nobility to marry the heir to the Prussian throne (Radziwiłł was not royal because her father was not a reigning prince),^[1] even though a Radziwiłł,Barbara, was theQueen consort of Poland in the 16th century. William's older brother,Frederick William IV of Prussia, was married toElisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria, and she was a descendant of bothBogusław Radziwiłł andPrince Janusz Radziwiłł.

Thus in 1824, the King of Prussia turned to the childlessEmperorAlexander I of Russia to adopt Radziwiłł, but the Russian ruler declined. The second adoption plan by Radziwiłł's uncle,Prince Augustus of Prussia, likewise failed as the responsible committee considered that adoption "does not alter the blood" (a principle which governs noble and royal connections to the present day). Another factor was the influence of theMecklenburg kinsmen of the deceasedQueen Louise in the German and Russian courts who were not fond of Radziwiłł's father and opposed the possible marriage.^[2]

Eventually, in June 1826, William's father was obligated to demand the renunciation of a potential marriage to Radziwiłł. William spent the next few months looking for a more suitable bride, but did not relinquish his emotional ties to Radziwiłł. Eventually, William asked for the hand ofAugusta of Saxe-Weimar, fourteen years his junior, in marriage on 29 August 1826 (in writing and through the intervention of his father). William saw his cousin Elisa for the last time in 1829.

Radziwiłł was later engaged toPrinceFriedrich von Schwarzenberg, member of the illustriousHouse of Schwarzenberg, but the engagement failed. She died, unmarried, inBad Freienwalde in 1834 oftuberculosis while at a spa seeking a cure.

Historian Karin Feuerstein-Prasser has pointed out, on the basis of evaluations of the correspondence between both fiancées, the different expectations Wilhelm had of both marriages: he wrote to his sister,CzarinaAlexandra Feodorovna (Charlotte of Prussia), wife ofCzarNicholas I of Russia, regarding Radziwiłł, that "One can love only once in life, really", but confessed regarding Augusta that "the princess is nice and clever, but she leaves me cold." Though Augusta was in love with her future husband and hoped for a happy marriage, theirs was a troubled relationship; Radziwiłł was aware of this, and she believed that she herself would have been a better wife to the Prussian prince.

• Fleming, Patrica H. (June 1973). "The Politics of Marriage Among Non-Catholic European Royalty".Current Anthropology.14 (3):231–249.doi:10.1086/201323.S2CID 144634148.

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