 During the Northern Seven Years' War, she apparently showed generosity to Danish and German officers kept prisoners in Sweden.At the dethronement of King Eric XIV in 1568, Duke Magnus II of Saxe-Lauenburg, consort of her sister Princess Sophia, took her, Sophia and Queen Dowager Catherine by boat from the royal palace of Stockholm, to abandon Eric by joining the rebels, headed by Prince John in Uppsala.John stated in the official propaganda, that Eric had planned to present Catherine, Sophia and Elizabeth as hostages to Russia after he had failed to so with John's consort.