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- [00:01]
Beckett
Welcome to the History Tricks, where any resemblance to a boring old history lesson is purely coincidental.
- [00:08]
Susan
And here's your 30 second summary. Boudicca was a 1st century Celtic queen of the Iceni tribe in what's now eastern England. After the Roman Empire seized her late husband's kingdom and brutalized her family, she she rallied a massive coalition of tribes and led one of the most famous uprisings in Roman Britain. Her forces burned several Roman towns, including Londinium. And for a brief moment in history, she shook the Empire's confidence. Boudicca's fame endures as a symbol of resistance, leadership and fierce defiance against oppression.
- [00:48]
Beckett
The
- [00:52]
Susan
lets talk about Boudicca. But first, let's place her into history. Or in this case, let's place a statue of her into history. In 1902, Horne and Hardart opened the first Automat, where food and drink were served through vending machines in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Let's bring this back. Marmite was first produced. Yum yum. On August 9, Edward VII of Great Britain was crowned King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, succeeding his mother, Queen Victoria, who had died the year before the first science fiction film, A Trip to the Moon, was released. That's the one where the spaceship hits the man in the moon right in the eye. Beatrix Potter's the Tale of Peter Rabbit was published. And Brooklyn toymaker Morris Michtom named his stuffed teddy bear after US President Teddy Roosevelt. Born this year, Langston Hughes, Tallulah Bankhead, Charles Lindbergh, Ansel Adams, John Steinbeck and Wicked Witch of the West. Margaret Hamilton died this year. Levi Strauss, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Charles Ingalls and Esther Morris, who was the first female justice of the Peace in the United states. And in 1902, after almost 50 years since its commission by Prince Albert, a grand statue of Boudicca and her daughters was erected just outside the Houses of Parliament in the City of London, a city that which once upon a time, Boudicca had burnt to the ground. Hello, it's just me today. Beckett. Graham. Susan is away. Now this would be the place that I would normally tell you that, for example, Boudicca Jane Smith was born in the year XX to so and so and so and so with a certain number of siblings. But what we absolutely know about Boudicca can kind of fit in a teacup. The story that follows is made up of myth, wishful thinking and a soup song of verifiable history. I mostly just wanted to say that word. Let's start with her name. Those of you of A certain age boomers, Gen X, possibly some elder millennials probably learned that her name was Boadicea. The Roman historian Tacitus spelled her name B O U D I C C A. And I'm simply relating. The general explanation here is that it was a, whatever you call it, typo that is cursive, a handwriting O, that Tacitus's writing was misinterpreted or future translators writing was misinterpreted. Let's spread out the blame. And over the centuries, the spelling B O a D I C E A began to appear in translations and that crystallized into the standard translation of her name in the English language. Sort of being cemented in the public consciousness right around the late 1700s when a famous poem by William Cooper pulled Boudicca back into the limelight for an eager new audience. It wasn't until about the 1970s that historians began using Boudicca B O U D I C A or Boudicca with tusis more consistently to better reflect the original Latin sources you will still occasionally see. Bot honestly, it's hard to let go of something you learned as a child. It's kind of like me not fully understanding that Pluto is no longer a planet. Sometimes the mistakes hang on. But most of what we know from this period of Roman history, as far as it relates to Boudicca anyway, were written by two men. Tacitus. He wrote to the Annals around the year 115, but he was only a tiny baby shout out to Catherine o' Hara when the action in this episode happened. He did have access to either first hand knowledge or recent records when he wrote his history of these events because they were still in living memory. The other historian, Cassius Dio, wrote his Roman history, 80 volumes of it, in about 27 years of his life, while simultaneously holding down a day job as a diplomat and a senator. He finished up around the year 233. He, as you can guess, was a pretty thorough researcher, but but didn't have access to anyone who had been alive during these events. Now, each of these historians has their proponents. I have witnessed online some, I wouldn't call them pitched battles, but I would say shouting and sulking matches. To which I say I respect all things that people are that passionate about, but I won't be drawn into the controversy. These historians tell it like they tell it. There's assorted degrees of personal interest and prejudice. We often say this on the show that when you're reading a source, it's important to understand the circumstances in which they were writing their works and the world in which they lived. But the movements of Romans in Britain seem to be something that we can all agree on. And here we go. In 55 BC, Julius Caesar, famous Roman general and statesman, went off to Britannia and for the first time it was a recon mission. Rome had been in the middle of trying to take over Gaul, G, A, U, L, which is modern day France, Belgium, Switzerland, et cetera. And there had been some assistance to their enemy flowing in from one of the tribes here. So we're going to see what's going on. Exactly. Bad weather led to a retreat that year, but he came back the next year with 800 ships and encountered what he wrote down as frightful blue, semi naked savages with pictures all over their body. My son would be happy to know that these were a tattooed people. Whatever they were, they were definitely quote others. After a series of battles, he did extract some treaties and tribute from the Britons. Now, Tacitus said this tartly, it may be said, Julius Caesar revealed rather than bequeathed Britain to Rome. I think the early historians thought that the initial forays were a failure because they were not a hundred percent dominating the way that the Romans were used to. The Romans were intrigued by the British use of chariots in war. And nowadays this was considered obsolete because the Romans had cavalry units now. But the chariot woo and the racing of these vehicles was a major entertainment in the Roman Empire. We, when we were in Rome, actually, we saw remnants of the Circus Maximus that used to hold the very popular chariot races. But these Britons were basically using obsolete technology in war, and they exhibited some of the same athleticism and daring that the famous chariot racers did back home, but now they're using it for a deadly purpose. I think it's as if we turned up to modern war and there were a whole bunch of people standing there with longbows. It would be that like, huh, huh. Interesting. Roman dominance over Britain was really cemented in the year 43 AD, which is almost a hundred years after Julius Caesar had landed the first time. It was Emperor Claudius and his quote, elephants, which may have been elephants or may have been siege engines that they called elephants. People argue about that too. I'm not kidding. I'm not getting involved on the presence of elephants in Britain. But the Roman technique was invade and see if there's going to be any resistance. No. Okay, Appease, absorb or adopt the local gods. Set up the government with the local guy and just push on or oh, you're going to fight me? Okay, Suppress them, then you Install your own guys in power and leave a garrison of soldiers to back your guy up. Gradually, Southern Britain in this way was conquered or assimilated. All of Britain was then constructed of enemies you have your thumb on, or friends you have your thumb on. These friendlies were called client kings. And one of these kings was called Prasutagus. He's the ruler of the Iceni people. Or you will also hear a Kenai people with doctorates in this specialization are tart enough with each other about pronunciation. Just laying that out as a possibility. The Iceni people lived just on the east coast, about in the middle of modern day Britain, north to south in modern day Norfolk. And this was a second generation relationship with the Romans. Prasutagus predecessor was called Antigios, and he'd been the first Iceni ruler to realize on which side his bread was buttered. But under his rule, there'd been an incident where rebellion had broken out. There'd been an objection to taxation. The Romans had lent large sums of money to the Britons and they expected repayments, and they were beginning to press for it. The Britons had thought this had been a gift of friendship. That was their tradition. And so it was a big cultural misunderstanding. The pressure to pay back this money was so offensive to them. And the local Roman governor had Iceni houses searched and weapons seized. Oh, ho, I see now how it is. From then on, the people's loyalty was, I would say, surface a layer of paint over festering resentment. On such foundations are true partnerships not built. And Titios was replaced by a much more loyal man as far as the Romans were concerned. Prasutagus now the Iceni were pretty solitary. They were not very into foreign products. Elsewhere in Britain, you'll see Roman food creeping in, Roman traditions, Roman housing, and the culture was percolating through. But the Iceni kind of kept themselves to themselves. The bow and smile philosophy served the Iceni well. They enjoyed stability that few other tribes had had in this turbulent era. They minted their own coins. Prasutagus was a very wealthy man, and thus his lands were also wealthy. They produced salt, very famously the basis for the word salary. A vital ingredient and a profitable trading item. There might have been some gold as well. The Romans liked this state of affairs, though, because Prasutagus land was like an extra layer of security to the north of their capital city in Britain, Hamilodunum. It was a buffer zone. The Prasutagus was handling, you know, one last thing. Prasutagus wife was named Boudicca. Or maybe she wasn't. Hey Beckett, didn't you just spend whole minutes earlier talking about the spelling of Boudicca and the pronunciation of Boudicca, etc, etc? Yes, you're right, I did. But the thing is, Boudicca might not even be her name. It might be her title. Or it may be a nickname she was given later after events. Because the word Boudicca means. Means victory. Ah, me.
- [12:09]
Beckett
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- [14:21]
Susan
King Prosthetic had reigned in peace and prosperity for somewhere around 13 years. He and Boudicca were the parents of two daughters who were likely in their teens when unfortunately, Prostutagus died in the year 60. He as a Roman citizen, as client kings, often had this status had made a will, leaving half of his estate to the faraway Roman emperor Nero, and the other half to not his wife, but to his daughters. Who knows why? No one blood likely, but it was not unusual in this period for fathers to regard daughters as their heirs. Isn't that refreshing Also, as we shall see. He might not have had faith that his wife would continue with the currently profitable client king situation, given her sentiments, which probably leaked out at home a lot more than in public. But Rome had other ideas about this whole thing. How dare he, number one, presume he had the right to dispose of anything at all. It was just a barbarian they allowed to continue operating as a client king, a babysitter, essentially. He didn't have ownership of squat. Obviously, I'm paraphrasing. And here he was thinking he would rob Emperor Nero of 50% of the Iceni lands. This prosthetic had lived in luxury at the gift of Nero, and this discourtesy was how he repaid his overlords. His kingdom was looted by centurions, his house by enslaved people, as if the Iceni were the bounty of an unfought war. All the chief men of the Iceni, as if Rome had received the whole country as a gift, were stripped of their ancestral estates and the king's relatives were enslaved. I want to remind you that the Iceni are long term residents of this area. Long before King Prasutagus, way before King Antidios or Julius Caesar In 55 BC, over a hundred years ago, the Romans had just repaid a century of loyalty with total destruction of Iceni society. Here's what's worse, and I would like to warn you here about violence, both physical and sexual. So sensitive ears of any age should fast forward just a little bit to avoid hearing this. Queen Boudicca, who up until recently had been the wife of a Roman citizen, and so by law, and to some lesser degree, she was a Roman citizen herself. She was stripped of all her clothes and publicly flogged. And I'm sorry to have to report to you that both daughters were then raped repeatedly. This behavior by the soldiers filtered out into the population at large, which this was not actually that in character for Roman society. Back home, free women were never punished in this way, and a man convicted of rape of a female citizen faced execution. Moreover, the two princesses had been virgins, which was an exalted, powerful state of existence that these soldiers had just violated. In addition, these attacks were perpetrated on members of nobility who had an expectation of special treatment. Certainly In Rome, and often over here in Britannia as well. I guess the remote Romans thought, who would know? Who would even care about those barbarians? They probably thought it was about time that these Iceni were taught a lesson anyway. But to the Iceni, as well as the general population of Britain, this treatment was the last straw. It cracked the pretense of this theoretically mutually beneficial society they'd been living under. Grievances bubbled to the surface. Conscription of young men for the Roman army, the oppressive taxes levied on Britons to pay back the money they thought was a gift. Remember not too many years ago when the Romans descended and searched our private houses and took our weapons away, and now they desecrate the princesses and dare to punish our queen, the personification on Earth of our protective goddess, Andrasta. It was at last time to stand up to the invaders, time to let them see who they were dealing with. The resentment had festered for decades, and now it was boiling over. There is from now on legend and myth attached to what happens next. Let me tell you how the story goes. Queen Boudicca became the focal point, the symbol of rebellion, the Mockingjay, if you will. Here is in fact, the only physical description we have of the warrior queen by Cassius Dio. And I quote, in build, she was very tall. In her demeanor, most terrifying, in the glint of her eye, most fierce. And her voice was harsh. She had a great mound of the tawniest hair which fell to her hips, and around her neck was a large golden torque. And she wore a tunic of many colors upon which a thick cloak was fastened with a brooch. A torque is a large, oversized collar necklace made of gold. It is very impressive. Too heavy to be trotting around with. This was a ceremonial piece of jewelry that had a message to it. Cassius Dio also said that Boudicca was, quote, possessed of greater intelligence than is often found in women. Thanks for that Ain't praise. People began to gather to Boudicca's location. Not just Iceni, but neighboring tribes, some of whom the Iceni had not been that friendly. With weapons in hand, chariots and children in tow, you cannot leave vulnerable people behind to have the Romans lay waste to them, so it was safer to bring them along. Now. It was particularly advantageous timing for the dam of anger to have broken. The main force of Romans were far away on the other side of Britain, in Wales, actually facing their traditional opponent in this country, the Druids, who had great political and spiritual power over all the tribes in Britain. The Druids they had been agitating against the Roman occupation for the entire century. It had been happening, and they were a big thorn in the Roman side. And the time was now to assault the enemy in their home base. The island of Mona is what they called it, modern day Anglesey. They were going to crush the last, or so they thought, remnant of opposition from Britain for good. So the other side of the island, Boudicca's side, was open and vulnerable. It was time for Boudicca to rally the troops. Cassius Dio gave her a speech. All the speeches that these historians write for their warriors and generals and antagonists are mostly all completely made up out of thin cloth, kind of like a fictionalized version of what they might have said with the sentiments they might have possessed at the time. Elsewhere in the story of Boudicca, one of the historians puts in her mouth some serious shade about Nero, including how feminine he acted, how he took such care of his personal appearance that no one could obey him, etc. So I think these historians took the opportunity to say what they really wanted to say, but they put it in the mouths of someone, oh, they've been dead for two centuries. So, you know, sorry, just reporting the news, sir, but they really got their feelings out there. It's kind of interesting to see. Well, this is the speech that Cassius Dio gave to Boudicca as the assorted tribes were gathering and she appeared before them with her flowing red hair and her plaid, they think, plaid cloaks. You have learned by actual experience how different freedom is from slavery. Some among you have been deceived by the alluring promises of the Romans. Yet now you've learned how great a mistake you made in preferring an imported despotism to your ancestral mode of life. And you've come to realize how much better poverty is with no master than wealth, with slavery. However, even at this late day, though we have not done so before, let us, my countrymen and friends and kinsmen, for I consider you all kinsmen, seeing you inhabit a single island and are called by one common name. Let us, I say, do our duty while we still remember what freedom is, that we may leave to our children not only the name of freedom, but also its reality? For if we utterly forget the happy state in which we were born and bred, what, pray, will they do who were brought up only in bondage? Cassius Dio doesn't really refer to the flogging and the rape of the daughters. He focuses on slavery and Roman oppression, and he focuses a lot on taxes as the main impetus of this attack. Perfectly reasonable. I do believe that is part of it. Interesting what he leaves out though. So I referred earlier to the fact that Boudicca was often regarded as the personification of the protective goddess Andrasta, the goddess of the sacred grove, some called her. There is even some thought that Boudicca herself might have been trained as a Druid priestess in addition to being a queen, because right after giving that speech, she released from her clothes a hare, functionally a large rabbit. And everyone watched the direction in which it ran, and it ran in a fortuitous direction, giving the proper answer that the gods looked favorably on what they were about to do. What's the story with the hair? Well, she's performing augury, which is a very specific ancient form of divination. During the process of augury you interpret natural omens like which ways birds would fly or which way a hare would run, or the shape of animal entrails to determine the God's approval for any action that you are about to do. You'll see the hare fortune telling in the Tiffany Aching books by Terry Pratchett. You I mentioned Terry Pratchett a lot. He is a very well read man. He knows a lot of things. In the book I Shall Wear Midnight that he wrote, the hair plays a major part. The hair runs into the fire. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but. But basically the hair will tell you which way the story is going to. So as the weather gets warmer, my thoughts turn to of course, gardening. And I'm obsessed with a class on masterclass by a teacher named Ron Finley. He is a community activist that teaches how to grow your own food and sustainability and also has a community aspect to it that I really like. And that brings me to the second class I love so much. Jose Andres, the most glorious humanitarian ever. He is a Michelin star chef. He's probably most famous for his philanthropic efforts taking kitchens all over the world in places where there is turmoil or natural disasters. I love this Jose Andres. With special guest chefs you can cook iconic recipes while exploring how food connects us all. You'll sense a theme. Food, gardening and connectivity are going to be very important to me. It's like 2026 theme. As listeners of the History Chicks, you are very used to turning your commute or your laundry time or your time on the treadmill if the weather is not beneficial to health into a classroom. 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- [27:37]
Beckett
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- [27:56]
Susan
Right now, our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership@masterclass.com historychicks that's
- [28:04]
Beckett
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- [28:29]
Susan
The rebels were on the move, and their first target was inevitable. The Roman capital city of Camalodunum, modern day Colchester. It was not very far away. The occupiers had taken this town and its surrounding farmland from the Iceni's neighbors, the Trinovants, a couple generations ago, and the residents had gotten a little complacent in their status and relative wealth. You know, for centuries, being a Roman citizen meant absolute certainty in your protection and your supremacy. Romans rewarded retired soldiers with appropriated farmland in the places they conquered, with the goal of those men raising new little Roman citizens to grow up patriotic and spread. Spread the empire from the inside, as it were. And so Camulodunum was occupied by retired soldiers, by veterans of the Roman forces who now owned land and lived in town. The town had grown and expanded from its original boundaries. And in their desire for expansion, the town defenses, giant earthworks like big moats with spikes in them, had simply been filled in and built. On top of the town had blacksmiths and farmers, traders and craftsmen, and market squares and a big new temple to the recently departed Emperor Claudius. A big offensive reminder of just who had put the British in this situation. But what it didn't have was any defenses. Trouble simply happened to other people. Surely something would happen. The soldiers would stop them. They would pay dearly for their. I don't want to say smugness, exactly, but their complacency. Word came that this giant force of angry barbarians was making a beeline for their town. A slow beeline. Don't get me wrong, it's almost worse. Inevitable doom approaching you at three miles an hour. Well, surely something would happen. The soldiers would stop them. The Camulodinians. I don't know their name. The citizens sent word to the big boss In Britain, the procurator Catus Decianus, who'd been the one that sparked the whole thing off in the first place with his abuse of Boudicca, by the way, and this man sent a contingent of only 200 men to try and protect the town. Who were these guys? Well, not the crack team, I'll tell you that right now. In fact, most of them didn't even have their weapons with them. Are they going to use the force? Are they going to stop the barbarian horde with their sheer force of their personality? Some stern talking to. I don't know what the thought process was here. The statue in the main square that was called Victory literally fell over, blew over by the wind or just by the winds of change. Some of the townspeople with superior pattern recognition skills packed up their households and like La la la, quietly peaced out into the hinterland. Cassius Dio writes about women excited to frenzy, who spoke prophecies of the destruction of the city. Speaking of pattern recognition of the modern day, did anyone listen?
- [32:02]
Beckett
No.
- [32:02]
Susan
It would not surprise you to learn that these warnings were disregarded. The faith that the Roman army would come to save them really prevented most people from acting on. The rebels came gathering more followers as they got nearer, like a series of streams just pouring into an ever increasing river. News of the gathering force encouraged a bit of general rebellion all over the country. And when they arrived, it was terrible. It was absolutely terrible. The rebels, led by Boudicca, took no prisoners, took no captives. They did take excessive amounts of booty. They laid waste to everyone with torture, with crucifixion, with atrocities. The anger had bubbled up and they took out their rage on any citizen, any man, woman and child that they encountered. Now, where were those 200 protectors? Where were all these veterans of foreign Wars? Well, the 200 protectors had barricaded themselves up in that temple of Claudius the the only relatively safe place in town. There they were barred into the temple with people who actually had taken up residence in the temple. There were people living there and they just got shut in with these soldiers while the tumult raged outside with the horrible noise of battle and rage and fear and pain, these residents were trapped inside of the temple. Over and over the attackers tried to get in, and after a while they climbed to the top and began to peel off the ceiling tiles. So here the people were inside of the temple, looking up as pieces of the sky started to appear to reveal their ultimate fates. After the destruction and looting, Boudicca set the town on fire. They actually stayed behind to make sure that it was on fire. Kind of a little harder to burn Roman buildings than it would have been to burn iceni buildings that were made of thatch and sticks. But they stayed around and made sure the destruction was completely clear. They've definitely sent a message to the Romans. 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Or MILL can even pick up the grounds and get them to a small farm for you. MILL turns a huge climate problem into a simple daily habit you can actually stick with. And I love it and you will too. Try mill risk free for 90 days and get $75 off at mill.com chicks and use code chicks at checkout. That's $75 off at mill.comchicks and use code Chicks. The Commander of the Ninth Legion a Man with the last name of Cerealis had heard of the approaching storm. He had quick marched his thousand troops in the direction of Camilla Dunham. The residents of that town could surely have used your help about five minutes ago, sir. But on the road out of town, the victorious Britons under Boudicca, who by this time some accounts say, might have been more than a quarter of a million people if you count non combatants, overwhelmed this Roman legion, a unit formerly considered nearly unbeatable, and they slaughtered all of the foot soldiers. The commander Cerealis, with the cavalry on horseback, fled and barricaded themselves in a fort. We officially are out of this mess. All done. No. So the big cheese in Britannia, Catus was his name, was completely shaken by this unexpected turn of events. And it wasn't going to look good at home either, that he had lost the capital city of Britain to a barbarian woman in her raggle taggle band of servants. Basically. Evidently he had the lack of self awareness to be surprised that his actions had led to this kind of response. And he fled the entire country. He left Britannia and crossed over into Gaul. He peaced out. So who did the Romans have left? Well over in Wales, the battle with the Druids had come out in the Romans favor. They had wrapped it up with complete annihilation of the Druids culture as far as they were concerned. Although side note, for me the very existence of the movie Wicker man means that somebody must have lived on. Just saying. Anyway, the commander of those victorious soldiers, a man named Suetonius, an expert in the field of battle, looked around to determine what the barbarians next target was likely going to be. And he settled on the town of Londinium. Correctly as it turned out, and by quick marching and really not sleeping, he and his men could make it there ahead of the barbarians and see what he could do. Scope it out. Londinium was a town on the Thames that had been established. It was first a military supply depot, but by now in AD 60 was a major trading hub. It was not very old at the time that Boudicca turned her eyes upon it, but it was strategically and more importantly economically very important to the Romans and was therefore a natural second target. Everyone that lived there had come from somewhere else. It was one of the most diverse populations that existed in Britannia. And you will read anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 inhabitants live there who all were anxious to, you know, not become Kamala Dunham. The Sequel Electric Boogaloo Honestly, some of my references are for very small amounts of people who can remember what I'm referring to. So there you go. Once they arrived, Suetonius looked around at Londinium's location. This layout is going to be hard to defend with the number of troops that he had and the kind of warfare that seemed to be going on, just the sheer numbers of the enemy. He had to make a judgment call. And the people of Londinium, who'd been so happy to see this force of soldiers arriving, were completely shocked when they saw the soldiers beginning to pack up to leave. Suetonius told the people of Londinium that functionally they're on their own. He advised him to flee because in order to save the entirety of Britain for the Romans, he's gonna have to sacrifice this particular town. Like he couldn't lay himself on the altar of this one place. He had to go find a better location to face Boudicca. He at least did not allow past Roman supremacy to cloud the realism of his situation. He advised everybody, pack your valuables and evacuate anyone who wished to accompany the troops. You can follow us or not, but you have to keep up. And a later historian wrote, and I quote, all who had been detained by the disabilities of sex, by the lassitude of age or by local attachment fell into the hands of the enemy. Boudicca and her troops had arrived. There was not as much booty taken in lindinium as there had been in Camale Adanum because a lot of it had been removed hastily, you know. But people are still finding buried caches of coins here and there that are attributed to this period in history. People who intended to come back for their buried valuables, who for whatever reason could never return to dig them back up again. Like with Camilla Dunham, Boudicca and friends set fire to the city after they raged through, making sure to eradicate it. And even now, in the places Boudicca attacked, archaeologists refer to a very distinct red brown layer of ashes and debris as the Buda can destruction horizon. Yes, it's about 4 meters below the surface, about 12ft below the surface. Talk about making your mark. A similar catastrophe like that that had happened at Londinium. No protection, abandoned ship was on deck for the city of Verulamium, which is modern day St. Albans. And I'm very sorry to say that reports of the atrocities here almost beggar belief, especially those that were perpetrated on any noble born women unlucky enough to still be in the towns as Boudicca's forces arrived. I think, I think in a PG rated podcast, I'm going to let you Fall down that particular rabbit hole on your own and I will give you a link, if that's your wish, to follow up on. I, for one, am sorry I read about it. But I will say that about 70,000 Roman citizens and allies died in the three cities Boudicca's army had decided to attack. Meanwhile, out in the wider world, Suetonius had gathered some more crack troops, some auxiliary units, and prepared strategically and carefully to fight against Boudicca and her army. Boudicca's people superior in sheer numbers, but, you know, they had little to no experience of the strategy of war, which he, of course, did. He chose a position that was approached by a narrow valley. Military will call this a defile. He made sure the rear of his troops was secure from sneak attacks and that the exit to the bottleneck was devoid of COVID for an approaching army. The soldiers arranged themselves strategically and they sent out a challenge and settled in to Wa had set up a trap. Where exactly is up for debate? Many people have said definitively it was here, it was there. It's called the Battle of Watling Street. Watling street being a approximately 250 mile, largely paved road that ran from Dover and other ports through London and up to Shropshire. And people are really struggling with where exactly Watling street crossed in modern London. That is another battle royale with cheese. But I will tell you, if you use the A2 or the A5, you probably travel over part of this road today. So the Romans are grimly settling in for what they hope will be the last stand with these people. And Cassius Dio wrote, the Britain's forces, on the other hand, disposed in bands of foot and horse, were moving jubilantly in every direction, capering and singing. They were in unprecedented numbers and confidence ran so high that they brought even their wives to witness the victory and installed them in wagons which they had stationed just over the extreme fringe of the plain. Now, this is where Tacitus gives Boudicca a speech. He has her riding in front of her people in a chariot with her two daughters beside her, and rode in front of all of the warriors and delivered the following speech. I am avenging, not as a queen of glorious ancestry, not from my ravished realm and power, but as a woman of the people. My liberty lost, my body tortured by the lash, the tarnished honor of my daughters. Roman depravity has progressed so far that our very persons, not age itself nor maidenhood, were left unpolluted. Yet heaven was on the side of our just revenge. One legion which ventured battle had perished the rest were skulking in their camps or looking around them for a way of escape. They would never face even the sounds of our many thousands, much less our onslaught and our swords. If you consider in your own heart the forces under arms and the motives of the war, on that field we must conquer or fall forever under the yoke of slavery. Suetonius gave his own speech, according to Tacitus, which boiled down to treat with contempt this noise, these empty menaces of the barbarians. There's more women than soldiers over there. They've never really been to war. They don't have good arms. They're going to break apart immediately once they recognize our superior weaponry and our superior position. In every battle, you know, it's a few men only who decide the fate. And it would be an additional glory that they only a handful of troops were now gathering the laurels of an entire army. So he's saying once the battle's won, all the glory would be theirs, the small amount of soldiers, Rome would be very grateful to them. He also depended, correctly, as it turned out, on the discipline that the Roman army had instilled in their troops. That's one thing Boudicca and her army did not have. It was cobbled together from many different tribes with many different loyalties. Subsidiary leaders, by no means. They had had the years of severe training that the Roman soldiers had had up until now, up until Boudicca's revolt, this had served him so well. But Suetonius was sure he had Boudicca's number. Now he had the Romans hold back until a sufficient number of Britons had come through the valley before the Roman soldiers moved. And when they did, the force was terrible. Boudicca and her troops tried to retreat out of the trap to a better location, but alas, all the chariots that had been bringing the supplies and the onlookers, the non combatants, blocked their retreat. And the Roman soldiers, at the direction of their general, spared no one, not even the pack animals, not even the non combatants in chariots. It was to be a wholesale slaughter. The death toll of this battle historically has been approximately 80,000 Britons who died here at the Battle of Watling Road, compared to approximately 400 Romans who lost their lives. Now, both of our ancient Roman historians say that Boudicca didn't die in battle. And I have a theory that even if she had died in battle, they're not going to give her that honor. Seems like a man's death, you know, to them, like a glorious death. They're not going to Give it to her. Tacitus says she poisoned herself because she did not want to be a tribute. We know from our Cleopatra episode that often conquered kings were brought to parade through the cities of Rome in chains. So she did not want that fate for herself. Cassius Dio said that Boudicca fell sick and died, which could still be poison. So they could both be right. The Britons mourned her very deeply, and they gave her, according to the ancient historians, a very expensive burial. But now the Britons felt like they'd been defeated, that this was the decisive battle, and they scattered back to their homes throughout the country. Now, where is Boudicca's grave? No one or no one really knows. But there are so many claimants, I'll only list a few. In the 1800s, it was actually claimed Stonehenge itself was a memorial for Boudicca. On Hampstead Heath, there is a Boudicca's mound, possible location, Stanmore Common in London. A lot of sites in Essex. There's a place in Norfolk that has been known as Boudicca's grave since the 1850s. And then this is the most interesting thing to me. So there was a historian in 1811 that said that the place called Battle Bridge was the site of this battle and therefore was the site of Boudicca's grave. Okay. Now, in 1830, Battle Bridge got a new name, King's Cross. Okay, if it was the site of Boudicca's final battle, then possibly, probably, she was buried in this area. Boudicca was buried at King's Cross. And according to the legend that gathered and swelled, according to this particular legend, Boudicca's grave lies under Platform 10 at King's Cross station. And this is not new. This story appeared to first come out during World War II. It may have started as a joke, because Platform 10 is where the trains go out to Cambridge. So that links to where Boudicca's from in East Anglia. I will tell you, I am not the first to notice this. J.K. rowling was asked, did you have this in mind when you wrote Harry Potter and placed the entrance to the Hogwarts Express platform between platforms 9 and 10 at King's Cross station? And she categorically denies it. But that, I mean, that's a coincidence, if so, don't you think so? Anyway, also, we're all pretty sure that Boudicca is not buried under. Under Platform 10 at King's Cross station. But you could make that pilgrimage, as. Once upon a time, I bought pillowcases made of fabrics like Cotton and satin. Or as SZA would say, cotton and satin. Oh, I would. But the thing is about cotton and satin, however you pronounce it, is that both of them cause frizz in your hair and sleep creases, which in our family we call Brinkles or bed wrinkles on your face. And until I switched to Blissey pillowcases made of silk, I did not know that that's where those came from. I didn't either.
- [52:18]
Beckett
And I immediately saw a difference, mostly in my hair, because the silk pillowcases really help control the frizz. But what do you call them? Brinkles wrinkles are reduced because silk is natural, cooling and gentle on your skin.
- [52:34]
Susan
We've talked about this before, how blissy
- [52:36]
Beckett
pillowcases make wonderful gifts. And I gifted myself a set not too long ago.
- [52:41]
Susan
Oh, Susan, you know exactly what I wanted. Well, silk is natural and gentler on skin and hair. And you can get matching sleep masks, bonnets and crease preventing scrunchies.
- [52:55]
Beckett
I have the bonnet and the sleep mask. I love them. Well, I don't love the sleep mask because my daughter stole mine. Oh, I know, but she loves it.
- [53:04]
Susan
You know, if people that steal that kind of thing, that's like an endorsement. Yeah, exactly. It's so good. I've committed an infraction. Well over 3 million of these have been sold. They've been featured in Vogue, on Oprah, and Good Morning America. People are really talking about them. They also help prevent breakouts. We love them. Because your listener Blissey is offering 60 nights risk free, plus an additional 30% off when you shop at blissy.com historychicks that's blissy.
- [53:37]
Beckett
B-L-I-S-S-Y.com historychicks and use code historychicks to get an additional 30% off your skin
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Susan
and hair will thank you. As to the aftermath, Suetonius, with all the juice he got from winning this battle, began a policy of super aggression. 5,000. And he really stirred up some instability. Nero considered abandoning Britannia altogether, but instead he decided on a different policy. He installed a man that had a slow and steady policy as governor. Tacitus referred to him as a man of quote, slothful inactivity, which seemed to be just what Britannia needed. And then a person from Gaul, a complete foreigner, was brought in to be procurator, the financial boss. And between them, these two men got things back on track. The Romans began to pour money into other cities, Londinium in particular, which became its new capital. We know what happened there. It slowly became the City we know now as London. But guess where they did not spend any money. Iceni territory. It's better that this fades away, I think was the thought process there in the 6th century is really the next time Boudicca pops up. A British monk named Gildas wrote a book, and in it he talked about a female leader and he talked about her as a, quote, treacherous lioness who butchered the governors who'd been left to give fuller voice and strength to the endeavors of Roman rule. Medieval monks playing the literary telephone game wrote of a powerful lady warrior. And as so much time has passed, some of Boudicca's story was likely mixed in with that of another warrior queen who lived at the same time that Boudicca did in the north herself, in her own right, a client king of the Romans. Her name was Cartimandua, and she is perhaps most famous for divorcing her noble husband and marrying a servant, and from then on having to defend her territory against the armies of her existence husband, and secondly, most famous for hand delivering through treachery the second greatest rebel Britain has ever produced and handing him over to the Romans. So I'll give you a link to her story. It's so spicy, especially in medieval times, to have a lady so powerful and devious. During the Renaissance, especially during the reign of Elizabeth I, the works of Tacitus and Cassius Dio became available in England in English translation. And the concept of Boudicca, especially now that you had a female queen, became just irresistible to playwrights and writers of all kinds, and references to her exploded. So now Boudicca is marketed and portrayed as more of an avenging angel, more than what the Romans would have called her, which is violent rebel. The personification of Britannia became sort of the concept like Colombia in the United States or Marianne in France, Boudicca became representative of the country as a whole. In 1782, a poet named William Cooper wrote a poem that is now marketing her as the mother of the British Empire. Irony given the that empire, the concept of empire was literally what she was fighting against. Here are a couple of stanzas from his poem. When the British warrior queen, bleeding from the Roman rods, sought with an indignant mean council of her country's gods sage Beneath a spreading oak sat the druid hoary chief. Every burning word he spoke full of rage and full of grief. Then the progeny that springs from the forests of our land Armed with thunder, clad with wings, Shall a wider world command Regions Caesar never knew thy posterity shall sway where his eagles never flew None Invincible as they. Well, that's true, given the fact that the sun never set on the British Empire. Here in a minute. Incidentally, William Cooper, which is written C O W P E R, was Jane Austen's favorite poet of all time. She 100% definitely read and loved this poem. In 1847, Charlotte Bronte, former subject, explicitly references Boudicca, although she, of course, writes Boadicea in her book Jane Eyre. Mr. Rochester is getting ready to get married to Jane, and he asks her if the wedding carriage that he picked out for her will be grand enough to make little tiny plane Jane look glorious like Queen Boadicea and Alfred. Lord Tennyson, not my own favorite, by the way, wrote a poem called Boadicea in 1864 where he tells her story. And at the end, thither, at their will they hailed the yellow ringleted Britannis. Bloodily, bloodily fall the battle axe unexhausted, inexorable Tennyson and his flowery language. Oof. I was going to read more of that, but then I decided not to, and I don't know, man. Different strokes for different folks, though. That's what the world is all about. Someone else who worshiped at the altar of Boudicca. The royal couple of England, Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, often likened Queen Victoria's role to that of her predecessor, Queen Boudicca. After all, Boudicca means victory, and the Queen of England was named Victoria. There could be no clearer parallel. And in fact, in 1856, they commissioned a sculpture, a grand sculpture of the warrior queen to be placed in the city of London. An artist named Gloriously Thomas Thornycroft began work on the piece. Prince Albert wanted Boudicca, pictured on a mobile throne, is what he called the chariot, and he lent the artist the palace's own horses to use as models for the horses in the sculpture. So the whole theme, you know, the goal he's shooting for, you're shooting to represent Britain's imperial glory, and you're going to hearken back to the OG Britons as the hardy, brave people from whom the current empire had sprung. Now, Prince Albert, of course, died five years later in 1861, the artist having completed this statue after a couple of decades, he did not have enough money to cast it in bronze. It's a very big piece, and also, there's nowhere to place the statue for many years. And all in all, it took almost 50 years from the time Prince Albert and Victoria had commissioned it for the son of the artist to kind of ram through its installation in 1902. Right now you can see it across from the Houses of Parliament at the end of Westminster Bridge, across from Big Ben. The statue is Boudicca on a chariot which has blades on its wheels. That's not historically accurate. With her two daughters that she's protecting on the chariot with her, as if they're representative of all her people. And she is somehow leading the charge with no visible means of control of the horses, no reins at all. So this is a very mystical representation of female power. She is, unlike a human woman, able to control her fate through, I guess, sheer force of personality and determination. And one side of the plinth, the column upon which it stands, there is an inscription with that William Cooper poem, Regions Caesar never knew, Thy posterity shall sway. This statue of Boudicca and her daughters was unveiled in 1902, and it's just around the time when the women's suffrage movement was gaining momentum in Britain and some suffragette societies began to use this statue as a rallying point, a meeting place, a place to start marches or demonstrations. Natural enough. Also, its location was perfect for visibility from the Houses of Parliament. An artist named Mary Lowndes designed the Boudicca banner. It says Boadicea on it, though, featuring the chariot wheels from that statue with those blades, portraying her as a fighter for freedom. And that banner was carried in suffrage processions to represent the warrior woman fighting for her rights. They also carried, by the way, many times, Jane Austen banner, Joan of Arc banner, Florence Nightingale, among others. Boudicca was viewed by suffragettes as someone who was both a mother and a ruler, and also a guardian of the home who was able to go out into the wider world and avenge wrongs, like a feminine entity who was tired of people's crap and demanded recognition at last. Often the anti suffrage propaganda would paint these suffragettes as not women, not feminine. And so Boudicca was a natural counterpoint to that. Like, see, warriors can also be maternal. Christabel Pankhurst herself hearkened back to Boudicca in a speech that she gave. Now, the rightness of revolt, the rightness of our militant methods, does not depend upon success. You may resist injustice and fail, or seem to fail, and still you have done right. When you are confronted by oppressions, when you are confronted by the forces of evil, then you must go and do battle against them. Now, who does that sound like? And that will bring me to the end of the life and legend of Boudicca, warrior queen of the Britons. And now it's time for media and as usual, we'll start with books. Two of the definite biographies that I would recommend. Iron Age Warrior Queen by Richard Hengley and Christina Unwin and the Life of Britain's Legendary Warrior Queen by Vanessa Collingridge, also by Antonia Frazier, who we've talked about many times on this show. There is a book called the Warrior the Legends and the Lives of the Women who Led Their nations to War, including of course, Boudicca, but also Zenobia of Palmyra, Elizabeth the First, Catherine the Great, even Margaret Thatcher and Isabella of Spain. So it's. I think that's a good kind of compilation. Also Tacitus's Annals, if you are interested in Roman history. And also speaking of that, Cassius Dio's Roman History, a couple of children's books I would recommend who Was Boudicca by Sean Busby and Boudicca's Army I Was there by Hillary McKay. And that is not a biography per se, but it's almost like you are going along with the main character Cassie, who is a member of the Iceni tribe during the time of Boudicca. As to movie movies, most of them are not getting very good reviews. They're. There is one if I could run it down. I think I'm going to try to see it. It stars Alex Kingston as Boudicca herself and is also evidently the first movie Emily Blunt ever appeared in. It was a TV movie and it was out in 2003, so my chances are slim. It was released in the US under the title Warrior Queen. I did find a clip, it's about a minute long, of Emily Blunt's part by itself in IMDb first roles. So I will provide a link to that. But as for the of the show, I cannot find it. But I still think the Internet seems to back me up here, that there is an opportunity for a big budget Boudicca. We should be keeping a list. Somebody should be developing into a movie producer in this audience. I'm telling you right now. Some of you who have been around a while know that we like Horrible Histories and there's a regular episode on Boudicca. I'll give you a link to her. And then she is a main character in the Horrible Histories Rotten Romans movie. Here is a quote from it. Welcome to Britain and you are welcome to it. There's a Celtic queen named Boudicca that's gone plum loco. There you go. And also it stars Kim Cattrall as our old subject Agrippina. I'm going to give you a article about chariot racing and then online Access to the Boudicca portions of both Cassius Dio's coverage of Boudicca and Tacitus coverage. Also a video presentation about how the suffragettes loved Boudicca. The glimpse of the Boudicca banner links also to Stonehenge Druids, the history of Tartan, the Boudican destruction horizon, and the London Museum, which actually has artifacts like pottery and other personal possessions that were excavated out of that layer of ash that Boudicca left behind. Oh, and I forgot, I will put on there a link to I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett, which features the hare in a witch like setting. And also, I forgot to mention this earlier, there is a book, I mean, you have got to be a committed reader because this is like one of the biggest books I've ever read. There's a book called London by a writer named Edward Rutherford and it covers London from, I want to say, when Julius Caesar landed on the shore all the way until the 1990s. It's 1200 pages and it suits my taste. My taste. Anyway, other people might use it as a doorstopper. It'll work, I assure you, it'll work. Anyway, pick it up maybe at half price books or ABE books if you see it around. And in closing, was Boudicca a hero? She caused a lot of destruction and I'm not entirely certain that it excuses her for the bloodshed to say that Romans in their turn did the same thing and worse. You know, she definitely changed the development of London for one. We would not have the city we do without her having burnt the old one to the ground. And also she, by showing the Romans they did not in fact own the whole orange outright, led them, at least in the short term in Britain, to use a much gentler parenting style, at least while she was in living memory, as a warning to what would happen if they did not. I do love what she became later, what her mythology came to stand for, that of the oppressed standing up to the powerful, especially for the suffrage movement. Though, doesn't she have a cloak, possibly plaid, made out of reverence for conquest, with her statue that was commissioned by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to literally celebrate a worldwide empire in a city, frankly, she once burnt completely to the ground. Well, this situation, unlike the famous song, you know the one, might actually be ironic, don't you think? That will do it for me today? Thanks for listening. Bye. If you liked what you heard today and learned a little something, please tell a few friends about us, find your favorite episode and share it or Leave a review for us on your favorite podcatcher. There are still a few spots left on our field trip to Italy. Not very many I don't think. If you have an interest, go to likemindstravel.com and check out our itinerary. It's full of food, new friends, history and a little bit of exclusive access. Go behind the velvet rope with the history chicks. We really missed the trick not putting that on the bags. Susan and I and 50 friends are actually going to London mid April and will send back photos of the famous statue to you. And if you live in a town that claims to be the resting place of or anything to do with Boudicca, one of those towns in Essex that has things named after her for that very purpose or or somewhere where people have seen her ghost driving the chariot, we would be very interested to hear from you and all about the folklore that surrounds this figure from history in your town. All the depictions of Boudicca we have of course would be artists operating long after the fact, so we'll collect those on our Pinterest board and you can see how artists interpreted her mythology throughout the years. The song at the end is After My Spot by Wichita Slim. He's talking about money here, but I think you can translate this to power and also to revenge, self confidence that you can take control of your future. We'll come back in two weeks with yet another new episode. See you next time.
- [71:31]
Wichita Slim
I won't stop I made both I'm on go I'm going die for my spine I won't move I won't shake I won't drop for my spy Been too long been too strong I won't bend I won't break for my spike Got your hands in the efforties Hands in the efforties hands in the efforties hands in the you should have your hands in the F of these Hands in the effort Hands in the hands in the hands in the I ain't in it all one to ten cribs wanted four cars one or more ice wanted more grills set it in stone told myself life better damn gear before I get ghost and it get real when the best set bet it on slim manifest twice I had nothing left ain't do nothing right but went all in loaded up dice know I'm going to win work it out later when the eyes lean back in my my favor Ain't no taking back wages pay it up full with a paper Running running running running after that Running after that Running running running after that what a come is that what comes running, running, running after. I won't go I'm gonna die for my spy I won't move, I won't shake? I won't drive for my spine Been too long, been too strong I won't bend, I won't break for my spine? Hands in the out Hands in the Hands in the Hands in the.
- [74:02]
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