One of the most influential and heroic Queens to ever rule England was Elizabeth I, the Tudor Monarch that her father Henry VIII would have been proud of. Elizabeth faced many challenges throughout her life, from questions about her strength due to fact she was a Queen and not a King, to the threats from the Spanish Armada that she managed to see off and defeat. She would throughout her reign execute many people who she believed were religious dissenters, but she would also execute Mary Queen of Scots, her cousin who had plotted to bring about her death and downfall. But Elizabeth in her final months of life was a shadow of her former self. Portraits showed her standing strong and tall and as if she had a hand on the world, but her final days were spent very differently. Following her death, she had a death mask cast of her face, which shows the haunting look of the Queen who by the time she died was suffering greatly. But what is the story of her death mask?

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