Boudicca

Boudicca, Boudica, Boadicea, Boadicia, Bonduca, Buddug [Romano-British, victory (?); cf. OIr. búadach, W buddugol, victorious]. A historical queen of the Iceni of eastern Britain at the time of the Roman conquest who has long attracted imaginative speculation. Tall, with a mass of bright red hair, she was virtually a giantess in Roman eyes. When her husband Prasutagus was killed, the Romans seized his territory, scourged Boudicca, and ill-treated her daughters. Infuriated and crying for vengeance, Boudicca raised a revolt of the Iceni and the Trinobantes, a neighbouring tribe, burning Camulodunum (Colchester) and Londinium (London). When she was defeated, she took poison rather than fall into the hands of the Romans. Before dying she called out to the goddess Andraste [invincible (?)] (c. AD 61). So many legends accrued to the historical record that the ancient queen almost has a separate identity as the fabulous Boadicea. Her story is the basis of the drama by John Fletcher, Bonduca (c.1618), a ballad by William Cowper (1782), a poem by Tennyson, and the popular novel Red Queen, White Queen by Henry Treece (London, 1958). See the historical studies: Graham Webster, Boudica: The British Revolt Against Rome (1978); Antonia Fraser, Boadicea's Chariot (London, 1988); The Warrior Queens (New York, 1988). See also CARTIMANDUA.