The story of Queen Boudica is a historical fact; narrated as a folk tale by the British and documented by Roman historians such as Tacitus, Cassius Dio, and other historians. History portrays her as an ancient British queen who led her people to a bloody revolt against Rome between AD 60 and 61. The revolts cost them no less than 80,000 souls of loyal tribesmen and their families, while scraping only about 400 souls from the Roman forces.
The story of this Iceni queen has generated different positions and opinions in the past centuries. She was portrayed as a stubborn, unruly queen who was highly unstable, while other schools of thought praised her courage in standing up for herself, her daughters, and her people. She was able to bring different tribes together to achieve the common goal of removing the Roman taskmaster from power in Britain. Though the fight failed, at least she did her best as a mother hen to fight for everything she loved.
Biography of Queen Boudica
Queen Boudica is said to have been born around AD 30 in Camulodunum and was described as a woman with a very good height advantage, long, light brown hair that reached to her waist and had royal blood in her veins.
She grew up in the East of England where she met and married King Prasutagus. Prasutagus was king of an ancient Celtic tribe known as the Iceni, the eastern part of England whom the Roman Empire (then the world power) allowed to keep their kingdom after southern Britain was crushed by Roman conquerors from AD 43 Most of the Celtic tribes were subdued, and Prasutagus was granted independence as long as he and his people remained Roman allies.
story
However, things took a different turn when Prasutagus died and bequeathed half of his fortune and property to the Roman Emperor to protect his family and people and the other half to his daughters because he is not a son to succeed him. The late king’s will was not confirmed by the Romans, who confiscated his fortune, plundered his chiefs, humiliated his wife Boudica by publicly flogging her, and raped his two daughters.
With the support of the Trinovantes and other tribes who shared a common hatred of the Romans, a militia of over 100,000 soldiers formed to unleash a full-scale uprising led by their vengeful warrior, Queen Boudica. So she began a revolt that led to the massacre of thousands of Romans and Britons in 61.
Facts about the uprising
1. The only account of Queen Boudicca was recorded a hundred years after the events and was made by two historians – Tacitus and Dio Cassius – of Roman descent. Some of the accounts are contradictory and intended for a Roman audience.
2. The Roman governor of Britain at the time of the event was Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, who was absent when the rebellion began. It was not clear if it was he who ordered the plunder of King Prasutagus and his chieftain’s lands and property, the humiliation of his widow, and the rape of his two daughters. He was on his way to fight with the main body of the Roman legion against the Welsh in the north.
3. The British rebel army had three successful raids as they raided and attacked Roman colonies that were poorly defended and inhabited by Roman veterans. First, they defeated Camulodonium, the first capital and important city of the Roman province now known as Colchester. The city was guarded by just under 200 soldiers who were outnumbered and defeated by the British.
When the 9th Legion under the command of QuintusPetillius Cerialis tried to save the city, they were ambushed and wiped out as well. Next, the British army overran Londonium (now known as London), already deserted by the Roman occupiers. Women and children left behind by the fleeing Romans showed no mercy as they were slaughtered, impaled on stakes and hacked to pieces by the rebels. The city of Verulamium was also sacked and destroyed with fire.
Defeat and death of Queen Boudica
Gaius Suetonius Paulinus finally ended the rebellion by defeating Boudica’s army at the Battle of Watling Street. Despite being outnumbered (the British had grown to well over 200,000 and the Romans to just under 10,000), the Romans held their ground and defeated the invading army with their superior battle formation and fighting technique. They overwhelmed the initial wave of the British Army with spear projectiles and crushed from either side in a wedge-like formation the rest who had inadvertently blocked their escape route. Eventually, Queen Boudica was unable to overthrow the Romans and died.
There are two different accounts of how QueenBoudica died. First, she was recorded poisoning herself to death to avoid being captured by the Romans, fearing what they might subdue to her. On the other hand, it was claimed that she died from an illness she contracted. She is remembered posthumously with her statues built by various artists and the theater and plays and books have been written about her exploits.
The English version of her exploits was the first published and published by a historian, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth in 1534, which she was called Voadicea, one of the many interpretations of the name, Boudica. To date, nothing has been recorded of the whereabouts of her two daughters after the war.