Elizabeth I Smallpox

1562 At the age of twenty-nine Elizabeth taken ill at Hampton Court Palace, many thought she had a bad cold and would die but fortunately Elizabeth did not but ended up having small pox a hideous infectious disease that causes thick, opaque fluid to form in bumps over the skin and even in the mouth.

A child with Small Pox

Thank god the disease was eradicated in 1979, the scarring which small pox was pretty severe luckily though Elizabeth is described after as not being to scarred compared to her poor nurse Mary Dudley who was also her lady in waiting became badly disfigured after catching it the poor woman; Her husband Sir Henry Sidney recorded her appearance....

“When I went to Newhaven [Le Havre] I lefte her a full faire Ladye in myne eye at least the fayerest, and when I retorned I found her as fowle a ladie as the smale pox could make her, which she did take by contynuall attendance of her majesties most precious person (sicke of the same disease) the skarres of which (to her resolute discomforte) ever syns hath don and doth remayne in her face, so as she lyveth solitairilie sicut Nicticorax in domicilio suo [like a night-raven in the house*] more to my charge then if we had boorded together as we did before that evill accident happened.”

      http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/article.jsp?articleid=69749&back=&version=2007-05


The poor mans even quoting from the bible.

Elizabeth's scaring is proclaimed as not heavy though that can't be clear due to the fact she wore a heavy skin base anyway whenever in the public eye, I'm sure she was no Cate Blanchett though.

Elizabeth actually in old age, painted around 1600

                                     http://www.pinterest.com/pin/381820874628752355/