Articles on History

Boudicca (depicted here in a painting by John Opie  (1761–1807) called Boadicea Haranguing the Britons), was the wife of the chieftain Prasutagus, ruler of a tribe called the Iceni who were situated in East Anglia in Southern Britain. Their location was relatively isolated as it was largely surrounded by forest and the sea but that did not stop the Roman invaders from being a threat to them. When the Romans came in 43 CE, they swept across the east of the country conquering any tribe that would not pledge allegiance to them. 

Like many local chieftains, Prasutagus decided that the future of his tribe lay not with fighting the vastly more powerful foreign invaders but in joining them. He paid homage to the Roman Emperor and became a client king, ruling in the name of Rome and answering to the Emperor and the Governor of Britain. 

When he died around 60 – 61 CE, Prasutagus left his kingdom jointly to his two daughters and the new Emperor of Rome, Nero. Aristocratic women in Celtic society were in a position of prestige and power, and when it came to women's rights, they were way ahead of their time. Women were allowed to be active participants in political, religious and artistic pursuits, and they could own land, marry whom they chose and even initiate divorce. 

However, under Roman law things were very different and the largest empire the world had ever seen had little to offer when it came to the rights of their women. The idea of co-owning the kingdom in itself would have been unacceptable to Nero and on top of this, daughters did not have inheritance rights. In fact, they found the very idea of women being involved in leadership and politics offensive and saw it as evidence of Celtic barbarity. 

To make an example of the Iceni for such an insult, members of the Royal Family were enslaved and Queen Boudicca was herself stripped and flogged. Then, in an act that can only be described as despicable, the Iceni leader was made to watch as her two daughters were publicly raped and tortured; the girls are believed to have been around the age of twelve at the time of their ordeal. 

Queen Boudicca and the Iceni were not the only ones to suffer at the hands of the Roman invaders and even collaborators were being harshly treated and heavily taxed. As a result, many neighbouring tribes joined her when she began a rebellion that was designed to rid the Island of this foreign force for good. Anti-Roman sentiment, it seems, was high, so much so that the usually fragmented tribes flocked to her cause with as many as one hundred thousand warriors turning out to fight the Romans initially. 

Cassius Dio gives a description of the Queen of the Iceni, stating: 

Celtic soldiers painted themselves with blue paint in a bid to make themselves look more frightening to their enemies which must have been effective because they managed to kill thousands of Roman soldiers during the revolt. However, Queen Boudicca’s armies were finally defeated at the Battle of Watling Street. The Roman force of ten thousand men was heavily outnumbered, with an estimated two hundred and thirty thousand Celts lining up to fight them. 

The Romans were tactically superior however and advanced towards their foe in a wedge-shaped formation, throwing Javelins to pick off the advancing Celtic warriors along with deploying their cavalry. The Britons were slaughtered and according to Tacitus, not even the animals were spared. Dio states that Queen Boudicca fell sick and died soon after the Battle of Watling Street, though Tacitus states that she poised herself and was given a lavish burial when she passed away. 

The Romans would go on to occupy Britain for the next three hundred and fifty years but despite this, the legacy of Queen Boudicca lives on. The fact that a band of barbaric tribes led by a woman caused so much injury and death, and came close to defeating the mighty Roman army would have shaken the Empire to the core and it can be argued that it also struck an early blow for women’s rights that would not be soon forgotten.