The first Briton to
burst onto the pages of history was none other than Boudicca; a woman who had
one thing on her mind; revenge. A fiery Celtic leader, she took a stand against
the Roman conquerors who had raped her daughters and pillaged her land,
fighting for the independence of the Iceni tribe of which she was Queen.
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| Boadicea Haranguing the Britons by John Opie |
Boudicca was a
striking woman; tall with fire red or tawny hair, and a piercing stare. The
Roman historians Tacitus and Dio both confirm that she was of royal descent,
although her parentage is unknown. She was a member of the Iceni tribe, who
occupied the area that now roughly equates to the county of Norfolk, and had
occupied the area prior to the Roman Conquest in AD 43.
Boudicca’s husband
Prasutagus was the King of the Iceni, and the couple had two or three
daughters. Prasutagus was possibly one of the eleven British kings who
surrendered to Claudius on invasion in AD 43 and was therefore allowed to keep
his kingdom, or he may have been a Roman puppet installed after the Conquest.
Either way, this enabled the Iceni to remain nominally independent, although
Prasutagus named the Roman Emperor Claudius as co-heir to the kingdom, a sign
of deep-seated Roman control. The Iceni did act as if they were in charge of
their own lands as Prasutagus acted as if he was an independent king. This was
most notable in AD 47 when the Iceni revolted when the governor Publius
Ostorius Scapula tried to disarm them. However, Prasutagus survived this
incident and both Tacitus and Dio agreed that Prasutagus lived a long life and
became wealthy. Celtic law did not discriminate against female inheritors, so
when Prasutagus left his kingdom to his wife and daughters, it was accepted by
the tribe.
However, to the
Romans, Prasutagus’ legacy would be treated very differently. It was general
practice for nominally independent kings who had submitted to the Romans, to
rule for life and their lands to be subsumed into the Empire on their deaths.
The Romans entered Iceni lands as if they were conquerors and forcefully took
it over, but not before destroying crops and homes. Roman creditors, including
Seneca the Younger, chose this point to call in their debts, further attacking
the Iceni. One creditor, Catus Decianus, was supposedly particularly greedy,
and called in all the loans that Prasutagus owed him. According to Tacitus, defiant
Boudicca was flogged, and her daughters were raped, and it was this humiliation
that made Boudicca take a stand.
The Iceni were up
against a strong foe. Gaius Suetonius Paulinus had been appointed the Governor
of Brittania in AD 59 after a successful career in Africa. In AD 41 he had put
down a rebellion in Mauretania (modern day Algeria and Morocco) and was the
first European to cross the Atlas Mountains, eventually discovering black
tribes in areas that now correspond with modern day Senegal and Mali, and was
mentioned by Pliny the Elder’s Natural
History, the largest surviving work from the Roman period. He had been
appointed as Governor to replace his predecessor, Quintus Veranius, and
continued his policy of ruthlessly quashing the Welsh tribes, particularly in
Northern Wales.
In AD 61, Suetonius
continued his predecessor’s conquest of Wales and made an attack on Mona
(modern day Anglesey). Boudicca took Suetonius’ absence as an opportunity for
revolt, and made an alliance with the neighbouring Trinovantes tribe and
decided to attack Roman settlements in the Southeast. According to Tacitus, their
ancestor’s who had thwarted Julius Caesar’s earlier attempt to conquest
Britain; and the German leader Arminius, who had famously destroyed three Roman
Legions in the Battle of Teutoburg Forest, inspired Boudicca and the Celts. Dio
paints a more supernatural picture of Boudicca, claiming she released a hare
and decided to follow which way it ran, while evoking the British goddess of
victory, Andraste.
Whether it was the way
the hare ran or the fact of her alliance with the Trinovantes tribe, their
first target was Camulodunum (modern day Colchester). It had previously been
the Trinovantes capital, but having been conquered by the Roman’s it was turned
into a colonia, or the most important
type of Roman city. Camulodunum was not defended by fortifications and it’s
garrison stationed only 200 soldiers. It was easy pickings for Boudicca’s
forces. The last defenders of Camulodunum sought refuge in the temple, but
Boudicca’s forces besieged them and they surrendered after two days. Quintus
Petillus Cerialus tried to relieve the city with Legio IX Hispania but were
defeated and his army wiped out. Catus Decianus, who had originally been in
charge of supplying Camulodunum with troops, fled to Gaul in disgrace.
The jubilant Boudicca
and her army next turned their eyes southwards, towards the city of Londinium
(present day London). It was a new city, having been built by the Romans after
the conquest of AD 43, and had grown to become rather a wealthy city under
Roman rule. Meanwhile, Suetonius, hearing of the rebellion, marched down the
ancient Watling Street to Londinium, in an attempt to surprise Boudicca’s
forces. On seeing the scale of the Iceni Queen’s forces, Tacitus describes how
Suetonius decided to abandon Londinium to it’s fate, as he felt he could not
defeat her in the city, to save the Roman colony. Boudicca’s army slaughtered
those who did not leave with Suetonius, and burnt the fledgling city to the
ground. They then turned to Verulamium (modern day St Albans), which suffered
the same fate.
Tacitus paints a clear
picture of the sheer violence and cruelty perpetrated by the Celtic army. He
wrote how they did not take prisoners, or bargain, or make deals with the
Romans, but burnt, murdered and mutilated all those that were in the way. Dio
goes further, and describes how the Celts made sacrifices to the goddess
Andraste, by impaling noble Roman women, cutting their breasts off and sewing
them to their mouths. However, this depiction could just be the imaginings of a
largely hostile chronicler.
Meanwhile, Suetonius
prepared his next move. While Boudicca ravaged Verulamium, he amassed a force
of ten thousand men from all over the province, including the Legio XIV Gemina
and the XX Valeria Victrix. In spite of the success of Boudicca’s rebellion,
other Romans did not answer Suetonius’ cry for help, including Poenius Postumus
who kept the IX Hispana safely within the walls of Exeter.
Suetonius, realising
he was outnumbered and unsupported, picked his battleground carefully.
Retreating back across Watling Street, the great Roman road that crossed most
of southern England, he went to a place that has been identified as being in
the Midlands. Along the road, he found a narrow gorge backed by a forest, which
would have prevented Boudicca from outflanking the Romans with her larger
forces. It was not long before Boudicca and her army arrived.
It was at this point
that Tacitus credits Boudicca with a speech in which she portrays herself as an
ordinary women, fighting for her, her daughters and her peoples liberty. He
states “she was not avenging her kingdom and her power as a woman born of noble
ancestors…but rather her lost freedom.” It is here that the legendary Boudicca
is first glimpsed; the noble savage defending he island kingdom.
In contrast, Tacitus also
gives Suetonius a speech, which contained the phrases “There are more women
than men in their ranks” and “Just win and you’ll have everything.” While
Boudicca’s speech seems to be a later construction due to it’s poetic turn of
words, Suetonius’ is blunt and forthright and may have been his original speech
to his desperate troops.
Boudicca’s forces
charged towards Suetonius’, but due to the geography of the area were
channelled into the gorge where Suetonius’ army picked them off with their pila or javelins. With the Britons
decimated by the javelins, they retreated, allowing the Romans to use their
trademark wedge formation to push the Britons back and slaughter them. The
Britons were trapped against their own supply wagons and were decimated.
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| The statue of Boudicca and her daughters by Thomas Thornycroft (1905). Photograph by A. Brady |
Tacitus and Dio come
to different conclusions about Boudicca’s demise. Dio argues that she fell sick
and died and was then given an expensive Celtic funeral. However, it’s Tacitus’
account of Boudicca’s suicide along with her daughters that has gone into
romantic legend. She supposedly gave them all cup of poison, and they lay down
in the grass together to die. A further legend presents the idea that she is
buried under Kings Cross Station, but this seems to be more myth than anything
else, and an attempt to link this ancient, powerful warrior with a Britain she
would have barely recognised.
After Boudicca’s death
in AD 60, her legend gradually ascended to new heights. During the nineteenth
century, Queen Victoria became greatly associated with the legend of the Iceni
Queen, as their names come from the same “Victory” word root. A statue of her
and her daughters was suggested by Prince Albert and built by Thomas
Thornycroft, finished in 1905. It stands next to the Houses of Parliament in
London, the city she once destroyed. Boudicca had now become a symbol of the
British Empire, and her statue was accompanied by the words “Regions Caesar
never knew/ Thy posterity shall sway.”
In life, Boudicca was
the first Briton to appear on the pages of the history books, and was a
powerful, angry and failed rebel. She conjures up images of a tribal Britain,
long lost in history, and a time of British isolation from the rest of the
world. Over a thousand years after her death she became a potent symbol for the
British Empire, the largest empire the world had ever seen, and even the
imperialism it embodied which she had despised in life.
Next time...Margaret of Anjou and the Paper Crown
Next time...Margaret of Anjou and the Paper Crown
Books to read:
Adler, Eric, 'Boudicca's Speech in Tacitus and Dio' (2008)
