Boudicca, also known as Boadicea, was queen of the Iceni tribe in the first century AD.
The Iceni people lived in south-eastern England at the time when the Romans were invading and taking possession of the land. When the Roman forces gained control of southern England in 43AD, they allowed the Iceni king Prasutagus and his queen, Boudicca, to continue to rule.
This changed when Prasutagus died: the Romans assumed direct control and confiscated the property of all the Iceni families that were considered important. Boudicca was stripped and flogged and her daughters were raped. Not surprisingly, the resentment against the Romans grew in intensity and became more widespread.
In 60 or 61 AD, Boudicca and the Iceni seized the opportunity to rebel while the Romans were distracted by a military campaign in North Wales. Other nearby tribes, also resentful of the Romans, joined the uprising.
As the Romans soon discovered, his was not just some local skirmish or a it of grumbly discontent.
Boudicca and her warriors not only defeated the Roman Ninth Legion, they destroyed the city of Camulodunum (Colchester), at that time the capital of Roman Britain, then killed thousands of people as they sacked the cities of Londinium (London) and Verulamium (St Albans).
The scale and decisive nature of the rebellion caused Nero to consider withdrawing from Britain altogether.
Finally, Boudicca’s forces were defeated by a regrouped Roman force led by the Governor, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus himself. It was a crushing defeat in which many Britons were killed.
While some claim she died of an illness, Boudicca is widely believed to have poisoned herself tather than being captured by the Romans. It does seem a fitting final act of defiance for that strong, brave and very angry woman to die in her own terms and not at the hands of the overlords she hated.
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