She was the daughter of count Nils Brahe and Anna Margareta Bielke (1603-1643). She married firstly to Count Erik Axelsson Oxenstierna, Lord High Chancellor of Sweden in 1654-1656, and the son of Axel Oxenstierna. The marriage took place in 1648. This marriage was said to have been arranged partially to eradicate the potentially difficult that could otherwise disturb the power balance among the noble fractions at court caused by the highly controversial love match between her relative Margareta Brahe and her brother-in-law Johan Oxenstierna.[1] She was widowed in 1656.
The marriage was politically motivated. Adolph John wished to establish support by her connections in the Swedish nobility for his ambition to participate in the regency government of Charles XI. After the regent, Hedvig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp, advised him against a dynastic marriage with Holstein-Gottorp, he proposed to Elsa Elisabeth after the Riksdag of 1660, reportedly against the will of the regent and others, who tried to convince Elsa Elisabeth to decline the match.
At the Swedish court, Elsa Elisabeth became involved in a dispute of rank with her sister-in-law, Countess Palatine Maria Eufrosyne of Zweibrücken, already on the year of her marriage. Märta Allertz acted as a mediator in this dispute without success. When the matter was resolved by the regent in favor of Maria Eufrosyne, as born a princess rather than in favor of Elsa Elisabeth, who was a princess by marriage, Adolph John and Elsa Elisabeth withdraw from court and settled at Stegeborg Castle.
At Stegeborg, the Ducal couple held a grand representational court life in order to secure support among the nobility for Adolph John's political ambition. However, the attempts were not successful. Adolph John I was regarded with suspicion by the nobility, and as a person described as proud, dominant and obsessed by rank, and while his first consort was described as a more mild character, Elsa Elisabeth was described as his equal in character and personality. After the great reduction of Charles XI in 1682-86, the ducal couple was no longer able to host a representational social life in accordance with their rank, and reacted by isolating themselves entirely from the outside world. They were said to have abused their children. This became the object of a formal investigation in 1686, and culminated in a scandal with to attempts of their children to escape from parental authority in 1687 and 1688, the last of the attempts successful.
