The Pharaoh
An ounce of prevention is worth at least a pound of cure. If you design the world right, incidence of some kinds of problems is low and this also means various ugly knock-on effects never occur.
Compared to the modern world with large populations and huge nations, her kingdom was relatively small, both in terms of geographic area and total population. There was no TV, no radio, no photography.
In medieval Europe and ancient Rome, coins were engraved with the image of the emperor or king as the best way to broadcast the face of the leader and it was one side view image. It probably did a poor job of helping people recognize them.
She may not have had even that much publicity for what her face looked like. Without her formal regalia to officially mark her as head of state, many people would have had absolutely no idea she was the Pharaoh.
Her royal guard stood a head taller than the average citizen and had training ordinary people lacked. If she dressed down, she could go where she pleased, when she pleased with a single guard and be at surprisingly low risk of danger.
One guard could be mistaken for an unusually tall commoner. It didn't automatically stand out as, clearly, an entourage of a powerful, important person.
She inspected crops, bought goods at various markets, spoke with people at will informally, often without being recognized at all, certainly not at first glance.
Similar to something a rock star once said, that prior to MTV and huge video screens becoming the norm on stage, he could go back to his hometown between concert tours and have a fairly normal life and strangers passing him on the street had no idea he was mega famous.
Back in the day before MTV, you typically paid cash for things like restaurant meals. Credit cards existed but plastic was not the norm for how people made payments, so it was extremely feasible to go eat at a fast food joint or whatever without anyone there learning your name.
There are far too many stories written today that implicitly assume King Arthur has a cell phone and credit card without realizing that is what they are doing. I'm trying to paint a picture of a world where the lack of modern tech means a powerful ruler could safely personally inspect almost anything in their kingdom at any time.
She genuinely cared about the people and worked hard to do a good job by them. They didn't know about much of what she did. They mostly saw well-publicized, unpleasant incidents like executions she ordered.
The people didn't love her the way she loved them. They didn't appreciate what she did for them. They didn't know about her commoner alter ego she donned for her endless inspections of the kingdom.
Her attempts to be fair and evenhanded resulted in some of the most dysfunctional people filing court petitions constantly, in search of a positive experience, making her miserable in the process.
She grew increasingly bitter about being a good ruler and hated or mistreated by the people. She died imagining that if she could reincarnate as a commoner and lead a grassroots movement, then the people would know and understand what she did for them and they would return her love and she could be both competent and happy.
The result was vastly WORSE abuse ending in her gruesome murder.