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(I eyeballed it and got most of the misspellings, show some appreciation.)

--> YouTube-Generated Transcript <--
0:00 · Boudica is buried under this roundabout,
0:02 · maybe.
0:08 · Welcome back to this final episode of
0:09 · History on Your Doorstep, the series
0:11 · which introduces you to the
0:13 · extraordinary past hidden in the most
0:15 · ordinary of places. And today, it's the
0:18 · big one. We're finally talking about
0:20 · Boudica. She's haunted the narrative of
0:22 · this series long enough. So I spoke to
0:25 · expert and archaeologist Duncan Mai to
0:27 · try to understand how much we really
0:29 · know about the warrior queen and her
0:31 · time in Verulamium. So who is Boudica?
0:34 · Boudica was the wife of a British king
0:37 · called Prasutagus uh king of a tribe
0:39 · called the Iceni or the Iceni in modern
0:42 · day East Anglia. Uh they refer to him as
0:45 · a king. They don't refer to her as a
0:47 · queen. So we assume that she was a sort
0:48 · of queen consort. We know that they had
0:50 · two daughters together and that they
0:53 · were client rulers as in they ruled with
0:56 · Roman approval. Um after the Roman
0:58 · conquest when Prasutagus died uh the
1:01 · Romans came in to seize the Aane
1:03 · territory despite having left half of
1:06 · his uh kingdom and wealth to his
1:08 · daughters and half to the emperor. The
1:10 · Romans came in to take everything. Uh
1:12 · Boudica stood up to them. She was
1:14 · flogged and her daughters were raped and
1:16 · the Iceni rose in rebellion. She led a
1:19 · huge rebellion against Roman rule. Uh
1:21 · she destroyed three major cities, but
1:24 · eventually the main Roman army fighting
1:26 · in North Wales came down to stamp out
1:28 · the rebellion. The rebellion was stamped
1:31 · out with great uh savagery and slaughter
1:34 · and Boudica either died in the battle or
1:37 · shortly afterwards.
1:38 · Who are our sources and how reliable are
1:41 · they?
1:41 · We are blessed in the instance of
1:44 · Boudica with our sources. The Roman
1:46 · Britain uh actually as a whole has very
1:49 · few historical sources. Most of them are
1:51 · clustered in the first few decades of
1:53 · the conquest. And with Boudica's
1:55 · rebellion, we actually have three
1:57 · different sources by two authors. An
1:59 · embarrassment of riches almost. The
2:02 · earliest account is by a historian
2:05 · called Tacitus who was writing a
2:07 · biography of his father-in-law, a
2:09 · grippler who had served with the Roman
2:11 · army during Boudica's war. Uh that's not
2:13 · a great source. um it's mostly composed
2:16 · of madeup speeches but she does at least
2:19 · get a mention there but about 20 years
2:21 · later he writes a huge history called
2:23 · the annals and in that he gives a very
2:26 · very detailed account of Boudica's
2:28 · rebellion and that's our main source and
2:30 · as far as we can tell matching it
2:32 · against archaeology and what we know of
2:33 · Britain at the time it's a very reliable
2:35 · very good source then about 100 years
2:38 · after that we have another author called
2:41 · Cassius Dio who writes about Boudica and his
2:44 · histories. It's a useful account in one
2:47 · or two bases where he gives us
2:49 · information that Tacitus doesn't, but by
2:51 · and large it's a much less reliable
2:53 · account.
2:54 · When you think of Boudica, you probably
2:55 · think of a taller woman with long curly
2:58 · ginger-ish hair. Maybe she's wearing
3:00 · tartan. Maybe she's got a golden around
3:02 · her neck, but she's definitely wielding
3:04 · a big spear. Dio is the one to give us
3:06 · the visual description of Boudica. He
3:08 · writes, "She was very tall in appearance
3:11 · most terrifying. In the glance of her
3:13 · eye most fierce, and a voice was harsh.
3:16 · A great mass of the toriiest hair fell
3:17 · to her hips, around her neck was a large
3:19 · golden necklace, and she wore a tunic of
3:22 · diverse colors, over which a thick
3:23 · mantle was fastened with a brooch. This
3:26 · was her invariable attire. She now
3:28 · grasped a spear to aid her in terrifying
3:30 · all beholders. You can see this is where
3:33 · the iconic image that many of us
3:34 · associate with Boudica comes from. One
3:36 · author writing a century after her
3:38 · death. She is given descriptions usually
3:40 · reserved for a man. A strong voice,
3:42 · large stature, and a man's weapon. Dio
3:45 · even says she possessed greater
3:46 · intelligence than usual for a woman,
3:48 · which was nice of him, wasn't it?
3:50 · Annoyingly, Tacitus never gives us a
3:52 · description of Boudica's appearance,
3:53 · only that before the final battle, she
3:55 · mounted into a chariot with her
3:56 · daughters beside her. This is
3:58 · frustrating as Tacitus' father-in-law,
4:00 · Agricola, played a huge role in the
4:02 · colonization of Britain. And even if he
4:04 · never saw Boudica, it's likely that he
4:06 · had descriptions. Tacitus himself
4:08 · probably never visited Britain, but his
4:10 · descriptions of the geography are
4:11 · consistently accurate, so he must have
4:13 · had some great sources. But wait,
4:15 · doesn't Boudica usually have red hair?
4:18 · Well, yes, but this doesn't actually
4:20 · come from Dio's description. It is
4:22 · thought that Boudica's curly ginger hair
4:24 · might actually come from the Tudor
4:26 · period, where poets wanted to draw a
4:28 · connection between the ancient warrior
4:30 · queen and their very own Queen Elizabeth
4:32 · I. And she's not the only British
4:34 · monarch to have tied themselves to
4:36 · Boudica. This statue created by Thomas
4:39 · Thornycroft is known as Boadicea and Her
4:41 · Daughters. The alternative name Boadicea
4:43 · seems to come from the medieval
4:45 · equivalent of a typo where a monk
4:47 · copying Tacitus misread the Latin.
4:50 · Tacitus himself writes Boudica but with
4:52 · two C's. The statue was erected in 1902,
4:56 · a year after Queen Victoria's death, but
4:58 · the statue had actually been finished 20
5:00 · years before. It was probably
5:02 · commissioned after Thornycroft had
5:03 · created an equestrian statue of Victoria
5:06 · for Prince Albert's great exhibition in
5:08 · 1851.
5:10 · Some say the figure of Boudica in this
5:12 · statue has a likeness to a young
5:13 · Victoria and this would make sense as
5:16 · their names may have shared the meaning
5:17 · of victory. Ironically, the chariot
5:20 · Boudica sits in is modeled on a Roman
5:22 · design with some added sythe wheels for
5:24 · dramatic effect. We can see the
5:26 · influence of Tatus and Dio's description
5:28 · as she wields a huge spear with her
5:30 · violated daughters at her side.
5:33 · Historians have argued that this statue
5:35 · symbolizes the Victorian refashioning of
5:37 · Boudica into an icon of the British
5:40 · Empire. And she certainly looks a bit
5:42 · like Bratannia. Stick a helmet on her
5:44 · and I'm sure many people wouldn't be
5:46 · able to tell the difference. But she
5:48 · also sits opposite Parliament here as a
5:50 · figure of revolution. It seems ironic to
5:53 · try to fashion her as the figurehead of
5:54 · imperialism when she quite literally
5:57 · died fighting an empire. And her face
6:00 · off with Parliament sort of feels like a
6:01 · threat. But just a few years after this
6:04 · statue was put up, Boudica's image would
6:06 · be invoked again, maybe for a more
6:08 · fitting cause, women's suffrage. The
6:11 · Pankhurst Women's Social and Political
6:13 · Union had silver Boudica brooches in
6:15 · their shops. Christabel Pankhurst was
6:18 · described as a Boudica of politics in
6:20 · 1908. Even the suffragists, the peaceful
6:23 · branch of the suffrage movement used her
6:25 · as a figurehead on banners and leaflets.
6:28 · These days, most historians consider
6:30 · Boudica a completely different figure
6:32 · from the historical Boudica. And if we
6:35 · want to get to know her instead, we need
6:37 · to get into this rebellion.
6:39 · What leads Boudica to Verulamium?
6:42 · Boudica's rebellion kicks off in East
6:44 · Anglia uh where the Iceni homelands are
6:48 · and they march immediately for the main
6:50 · Roman city at what is now Colchester
6:52 · Roman Camulodunum. They destroy that
6:55 · place. Uh a Roman army comes down to try
6:59 · and stop them destroying it but they
7:00 · also wipe them out as well. So initially
7:02 · it's hugely successful. She then marches
7:05 · on London. Again London has no defenses,
7:08 · no garrison. She overwhelms it, destroys
7:10 · it completely.
7:12 · The Roman army coming from North Wales
7:15 · under a general called Suetonius Paulinus
7:18 · had actually managed to get to London
7:19 · before Boudica, but they declared it
7:21 · indefensible and retreated again.
7:24 · Boudica, having destroyed London, sets
7:26 · her sights then on Verulamium, which is
7:30 · next to modernday St. Albans's. She's um
7:33 · quite plausibly going up there because
7:35 · Verulamium is is a legitimate target in
7:38 · the same way that London and Colchester
7:39 · were. She's also quite plausibly
7:42 · following uh the Romans as they retreat.
7:46 · But also if they head north um up
7:48 · Watling Street, just north of
7:50 · Verulamium, the Watling Street crosses
7:53 · something called the Icknield Way, which was
7:55 · an ancient trackway that would lead
7:57 · directly back to uh her homeland in
7:59 · Norfolk. So it may also have been a a
8:01 · route home. She marches to Verulamium. She
8:05 · destroys it. Uh and then we're told by
8:07 · the sources by Tacitus that's in almost
8:10 · immediately after the fall of Verulamium
8:12 · Paulinus broke off delay and fought a
8:14 · battle.
8:15 · Verulamium is not the site of the final
8:17 · battle. Tacitus tells us so. He
8:19 · describes the battlefield but he doesn't
8:21 · give us a name. Loads of locations have
8:23 · been put forward mainly along Watling
8:25 · Street with historians mainly favoring
8:27 · locations in the Midlands. But these
8:29 · locations are usually 50 miles from
8:31 · Verulamium. And it begs the question as to
8:34 · why the Romans didn't end things sooner.
8:36 · Well, in his book, Duncan Mai presents a
8:38 · different suggestion, one which ends
8:40 · things much closer to Verulamium than any
8:42 · other site. So, you believe the final
8:44 · battle location is at Park Street. But
8:47 · what sets us apart from previous
8:48 · contenders for the final battle?
8:50 · Well, um, people have looked for this
8:53 · battlefield all over Britain. Um there
8:56 · have been so many uh potential
8:58 · candidates put forward and normally
9:02 · people uh look for this battlefield by
9:05 · coming across a piece of landscape and
9:06 · saying this looks like the piece of
9:08 · landscape that Tacitus describes.
9:10 · Tacitus gives us a description of the
9:11 · battlefield. He says there's a valley uh
9:14 · leading to a Roman position that's
9:15 · backed by woodland so they can't be
9:17 · outflanked. He doesn't give us much more
9:19 · than that. And of course the the British
9:21 · landscape was full of of places that
9:23 · look like that. All of the candidate
9:25 · sites so far put forward firstly have
9:28 · produced no artifacts to suggest
9:30 · anything ever took place there. They're
9:32 · often a long way from Barilame uh which
9:35 · we are told was the last place Budica
9:37 · was at before they fight this battle
9:39 · which Taster suggests is fairly rapidly
9:42 · afterwards.
9:44 · So we have candidate sites in North
9:46 · Wales, in Kent, in Warwickshire, in
9:49 · Wiltshire, in Cambridge, and they're all
9:51 · quite a long way from this final
9:53 · battlefield. As an archaeologist and
9:55 · following the evidence as far as I
9:58 · could, you can follow Boudica's route to
10:00 · Verulamium, both in the archaeology and
10:02 · in the historical sources. There the
10:05 · trail really goes dead, and I feel that
10:07 · we should be looking for somewhere
10:09 · fairly close to Verulamium.
10:11 · By remarkable coincidence, there is just
10:15 · to the west of Verulamium, only a mile
10:17 · or two away, a valley leading up from
10:19 · Watling Street. Now, Watling Street is
10:21 · the road Bud is taking from London to
10:23 · Verulamium. The valley leads directly
10:26 · from Watling Street for a mile up to a
10:28 · hilltop where the a Roman army based
10:33 · there would have its uh woodland at its
10:36 · back. It the woodland is still there.
10:37 · It's ancient woodland, prey wood. And
10:40 · remarkably, exactly where you would
10:42 · place the Roman battle line, there's
10:43 · this scatter of early Roman battle
10:46 · artifacts, mostly consisting of lead
10:49 · sling bullets, uh, which were used by
10:52 · the Roman auxilia. So, between, um,
10:55 · Praewood and the Windridge farm up on
10:58 · the hilltop down the valley to the Park
11:01 · Street roundabout, you have this
11:03 · wonderful coincidence of evidence coming
11:06 · together. You have a landscape that we
11:09 · know categorically Boudica was in that
11:11 · landscape. It's recorded historically
11:14 · that she was and we've got the
11:15 · archaeology to show that she destroyed
11:16 · the town a mile away. She we know she's
11:18 · there. The landscape the topography fits
11:22 · Tacitus very well and it's a perfect uh
11:25 · topography of gentle slopes and and for
11:28 · the for the Roman army to maneuver
11:30 · around in the way that Tacitus
11:31 · describes. But crucially to to crown it
11:34 · all, you have that rarest of artifacts
11:37 · in the British landscape, which is a a
11:39 · cluster of Roman battle artifacts.
11:41 · That's incredibly rare. And to say that
11:44 · we're looking for the biggest battle
11:45 · ever fought by the Romans in Britain,
11:47 · and you coincidentally have this scatter
11:49 · of battle artifacts at this place that
11:51 · we can put Boudica, I think makes it by
11:53 · far the most compelling candidate at the
11:56 · moment.
11:57 · So, the legend of Boudica may very well
11:59 · come to an end under this roundabout.
12:01 · Tastes says she takes poison rather than
12:03 · become a prisoner. And Dio says she dies
12:05 · of some illness, usually interpreted as
12:08 · her succumbing to battle wounds. Boudica
12:10 · has taken on so many forms and stories.
12:12 · We will never truly know the events of
12:14 · 60 AD. But I don't doubt for a second
12:17 · that her legacy will continue to be
12:18 · spoken about or her image invoked for a
12:20 · cause for decades to come. And isn't it
12:23 · fun to think that this small roundabout
12:25 · 100 miles from her homeland played such
12:27 · a defining role in that legacy?

--> YouTube-Generated Transcript <--
0:00	·	Boudica is buried under this roundabout,
0:02	·	maybe.
0:08	·	Welcome back to this final episode of
0:09	·	History on Your Doorstep, the series
0:11	·	which introduces you to the
0:13	·	extraordinary past hidden in the most
0:15	·	ordinary of places. And today, it's the
0:18	·	big one. We're finally talking about
0:20	·	Boudica. She's haunted the narrative of
0:22	·	this series long enough. So I spoke to
0:25	·	expert and archaeologist Duncan Mai to
0:27	·	try to understand how much we really
0:29	·	know about the warrior queen and her
0:31	·	time in Verulamium. So who is Boudica?
0:34	·	Boudica was the wife of a British king
0:37	·	called Prasutagus uh king of a tribe
0:39	·	called the Iceni or the Iceni in modern
0:42	·	day East Anglia. Uh they refer to him as
0:45	·	a king. They don't refer to her as a
0:47	·	queen. So we assume that she was a sort
0:48	·	of queen consort. We know that they had
0:50	·	two daughters together and that they
0:53	·	were client rulers as in they ruled with
0:56	·	Roman approval. Um after the Roman
0:58	·	conquest when Prasutagus died uh the
1:01	·	Romans came in to seize the Aane
1:03	·	territory despite having left half of
1:06	·	his uh kingdom and wealth to his
1:08	·	daughters and half to the emperor. The
1:10	·	Romans came in to take everything. Uh
1:12	·	Boudica stood up to them. She was
1:14	·	flogged and her daughters were raped and
1:16	·	the Iceni rose in rebellion. She led a
1:19	·	huge rebellion against Roman rule. Uh
1:21	·	she destroyed three major cities, but
1:24	·	eventually the main Roman army fighting
1:26	·	in North Wales came down to stamp out
1:28	·	the rebellion. The rebellion was stamped
1:31	·	out with great uh savagery and slaughter
1:34	·	and Boudica either died in the battle or
1:37	·	shortly afterwards.
1:38	·	Who are our sources and how reliable are
1:41	·	they?
1:41	·	We are blessed in the instance of
1:44	·	Boudica with our sources. The Roman
1:46	·	Britain uh actually as a whole has very
1:49	·	few historical sources. Most of them are
1:51	·	clustered in the first few decades of
1:53	·	the conquest. And with Boudica's
1:55	·	rebellion, we actually have three
1:57	·	different sources by two authors. An
1:59	·	embarrassment of riches almost. The
2:02	·	earliest account is by a historian
2:05	·	called Tacitus who was writing a
2:07	·	biography of his father-in-law, a
2:09	·	grippler who had served with the Roman
2:11	·	army during Boudica's war. Uh that's not
2:13	·	a great source. um it's mostly composed
2:16	·	of madeup speeches but she does at least
2:19	·	get a mention there but about 20 years
2:21	·	later he writes a huge history called
2:23	·	the annals and in that he gives a very
2:26	·	very detailed account of Boudica's
2:28	·	rebellion and that's our main source and
2:30	·	as far as we can tell matching it
2:32	·	against archaeology and what we know of
2:33	·	Britain at the time it's a very reliable
2:35	·	very good source then about 100 years
2:38	·	after that we have another author called
2:41	·	Cassius Dio who writes about Boudica and his
2:44	·	histories. It's a useful account in one
2:47	·	or two bases where he gives us
2:49	·	information that Tacitus doesn't, but by
2:51	·	and large it's a much less reliable
2:53	·	account.
2:54	·	When you think of Boudica, you probably
2:55	·	think of a taller woman with long curly
2:58	·	ginger-ish hair. Maybe she's wearing
3:00	·	tartan. Maybe she's got a golden around
3:02	·	her neck, but she's definitely wielding
3:04	·	a big spear. Dio is the one to give us
3:06	·	the visual description of Boudica. He
3:08	·	writes, "She was very tall in appearance
3:11	·	most terrifying. In the glance of her
3:13	·	eye most fierce, and a voice was harsh.
3:16	·	A great mass of the toriiest hair fell
3:17	·	to her hips, around her neck was a large
3:19	·	golden necklace, and she wore a tunic of
3:22	·	diverse colors, over which a thick
3:23	·	mantle was fastened with a brooch. This
3:26	·	was her invariable attire. She now
3:28	·	grasped a spear to aid her in terrifying
3:30	·	all beholders. You can see this is where
3:33	·	the iconic image that many of us
3:34	·	associate with Boudica comes from. One
3:36	·	author writing a century after her
3:38	·	death. She is given descriptions usually
3:40	·	reserved for a man. A strong voice,
3:42	·	large stature, and a man's weapon. Dio
3:45	·	even says she possessed greater
3:46	·	intelligence than usual for a woman,
3:48	·	which was nice of him, wasn't it?
3:50	·	Annoyingly, Tacitus never gives us a
3:52	·	description of Boudica's appearance,
3:53	·	only that before the final battle, she
3:55	·	mounted into a chariot with her
3:56	·	daughters beside her. This is
3:58	·	frustrating as Tacitus' father-in-law,
4:00	·	Agricola, played a huge role in the
4:02	·	colonization of Britain. And even if he
4:04	·	never saw Boudica, it's likely that he
4:06	·	had descriptions. Tacitus himself
4:08	·	probably never visited Britain, but his
4:10	·	descriptions of the geography are
4:11	·	consistently accurate, so he must have
4:13	·	had some great sources. But wait,
4:15	·	doesn't Boudica usually have red hair?
4:18	·	Well, yes, but this doesn't actually
4:20	·	come from Dio's description. It is
4:22	·	thought that Boudica's curly ginger hair
4:24	·	might actually come from the Tudor
4:26	·	period, where poets wanted to draw a
4:28	·	connection between the ancient warrior
4:30	·	queen and their very own Queen Elizabeth
4:32	·	I. And she's not the only British
4:34	·	monarch to have tied themselves to
4:36	·	Boudica. This statue created by Thomas
4:39	·	Thornycroft is known as Boadicea and Her
4:41	·	Daughters. The alternative name Boadicea
4:43	·	seems to come from the medieval
4:45	·	equivalent of a typo where a monk
4:47	·	copying Tacitus misread the Latin.
4:50	·	Tacitus himself writes Boudica but with
4:52	·	two C's. The statue was erected in 1902,
4:56	·	a year after Queen Victoria's death, but
4:58	·	the statue had actually been finished 20
5:00	·	years before. It was probably
5:02	·	commissioned after Thornycroft had
5:03	·	created an equestrian statue of Victoria
5:06	·	for Prince Albert's great exhibition in
5:08	·	1851.
5:10	·	Some say the figure of Boudica in this
5:12	·	statue has a likeness to a young
5:13	·	Victoria and this would make sense as
5:16	·	their names may have shared the meaning
5:17	·	of victory. Ironically, the chariot
5:20	·	Boudica sits in is modeled on a Roman
5:22	·	design with some added sythe wheels for
5:24	·	dramatic effect. We can see the
5:26	·	influence of Tatus and Dio's description
5:28	·	as she wields a huge spear with her
5:30	·	violated daughters at her side.
5:33	·	Historians have argued that this statue
5:35	·	symbolizes the Victorian refashioning of
5:37	·	Boudica into an icon of the British
5:40	·	Empire. And she certainly looks a bit
5:42	·	like Bratannia. Stick a helmet on her
5:44	·	and I'm sure many people wouldn't be
5:46	·	able to tell the difference. But she
5:48	·	also sits opposite Parliament here as a
5:50	·	figure of revolution. It seems ironic to
5:53	·	try to fashion her as the figurehead of
5:54	·	imperialism when she quite literally
5:57	·	died fighting an empire. And her face
6:00	·	off with Parliament sort of feels like a
6:01	·	threat. But just a few years after this
6:04	·	statue was put up, Boudica's image would
6:06	·	be invoked again, maybe for a more
6:08	·	fitting cause, women's suffrage. The
6:11	·	Pankhurst Women's Social and Political
6:13	·	Union had silver Boudica brooches in
6:15	·	their shops. Christabel Pankhurst was
6:18	·	described as a Boudica of politics in
6:20	·	1908. Even the suffragists, the peaceful
6:23	·	branch of the suffrage movement used her
6:25	·	as a figurehead on banners and leaflets.
6:28	·	These days, most historians consider
6:30	·	Boudica a completely different figure
6:32	·	from the historical Boudica. And if we
6:35	·	want to get to know her instead, we need
6:37	·	to get into this rebellion.
6:39	·	What leads Boudica to Verulamium?
6:42	·	Boudica's rebellion kicks off in East
6:44	·	Anglia uh where the Iceni homelands are
6:48	·	and they march immediately for the main
6:50	·	Roman city at what is now Colchester
6:52	·	Roman Camulodunum. They destroy that
6:55	·	place. Uh a Roman army comes down to try
6:59	·	and stop them destroying it but they
7:00	·	also wipe them out as well. So initially
7:02	·	it's hugely successful. She then marches
7:05	·	on London. Again London has no defenses,
7:08	·	no garrison. She overwhelms it, destroys
7:10	·	it completely.
7:12	·	The Roman army coming from North Wales
7:15	·	under a general called Suetonius Paulinus
7:18	·	had actually managed to get to London
7:19	·	before Boudica, but they declared it
7:21	·	indefensible and retreated again.
7:24	·	Boudica, having destroyed London, sets
7:26	·	her sights then on Verulamium, which is
7:30	·	next to modernday St. Albans's. She's um
7:33	·	quite plausibly going up there because
7:35	·	Verulamium is is a legitimate target in
7:38	·	the same way that London and Colchester
7:39	·	were. She's also quite plausibly
7:42	·	following uh the Romans as they retreat.
7:46	·	But also if they head north um up
7:48	·	Watling Street, just north of
7:50	·	Verulamium, the Watling Street crosses
7:53	·	something called the Icknield Way, which was
7:55	·	an ancient trackway that would lead
7:57	·	directly back to uh her homeland in
7:59	·	Norfolk. So it may also have been a a
8:01	·	route home. She marches to Verulamium. She
8:05	·	destroys it. Uh and then we're told by
8:07	·	the sources by Tacitus that's in almost
8:10	·	immediately after the fall of Verulamium
8:12	·	Paulinus broke off delay and fought a
8:14	·	battle.
8:15	·	Verulamium is not the site of the final
8:17	·	battle. Tacitus tells us so. He
8:19	·	describes the battlefield but he doesn't
8:21	·	give us a name. Loads of locations have
8:23	·	been put forward mainly along Watling
8:25	·	Street with historians mainly favoring
8:27	·	locations in the Midlands. But these
8:29	·	locations are usually 50 miles from
8:31	·	Verulamium. And it begs the question as to
8:34	·	why the Romans didn't end things sooner.
8:36	·	Well, in his book, Duncan Mai presents a
8:38	·	different suggestion, one which ends
8:40	·	things much closer to Verulamium than any
8:42	·	other site. So, you believe the final
8:44	·	battle location is at Park Street. But
8:47	·	what sets us apart from previous
8:48	·	contenders for the final battle?
8:50	·	Well, um, people have looked for this
8:53	·	battlefield all over Britain. Um there
8:56	·	have been so many uh potential
8:58	·	candidates put forward and normally
9:02	·	people uh look for this battlefield by
9:05	·	coming across a piece of landscape and
9:06	·	saying this looks like the piece of
9:08	·	landscape that Tacitus describes.
9:10	·	Tacitus gives us a description of the
9:11	·	battlefield. He says there's a valley uh
9:14	·	leading to a Roman position that's
9:15	·	backed by woodland so they can't be
9:17	·	outflanked. He doesn't give us much more
9:19	·	than that. And of course the the British
9:21	·	landscape was full of of places that
9:23	·	look like that. All of the candidate
9:25	·	sites so far put forward firstly have
9:28	·	produced no artifacts to suggest
9:30	·	anything ever took place there. They're
9:32	·	often a long way from Barilame uh which
9:35	·	we are told was the last place Budica
9:37	·	was at before they fight this battle
9:39	·	which Taster suggests is fairly rapidly
9:42	·	afterwards.
9:44	·	So we have candidate sites in North
9:46	·	Wales, in Kent, in Warwickshire, in
9:49	·	Wiltshire, in Cambridge, and they're all
9:51	·	quite a long way from this final
9:53	·	battlefield. As an archaeologist and
9:55	·	following the evidence as far as I
9:58	·	could, you can follow Boudica's route to
10:00	·	Verulamium, both in the archaeology and
10:02	·	in the historical sources. There the
10:05	·	trail really goes dead, and I feel that
10:07	·	we should be looking for somewhere
10:09	·	fairly close to Verulamium.
10:11	·	By remarkable coincidence, there is just
10:15	·	to the west of Verulamium, only a mile
10:17	·	or two away, a valley leading up from
10:19	·	Watling Street. Now, Watling Street is
10:21	·	the road Bud is taking from London to
10:23	·	Verulamium. The valley leads directly
10:26	·	from Watling Street for a mile up to a
10:28	·	hilltop where the a Roman army based
10:33	·	there would have its uh woodland at its
10:36	·	back. It the woodland is still there.
10:37	·	It's ancient woodland, prey wood. And
10:40	·	remarkably, exactly where you would
10:42	·	place the Roman battle line, there's
10:43	·	this scatter of early Roman battle
10:46	·	artifacts, mostly consisting of lead
10:49	·	sling bullets, uh, which were used by
10:52	·	the Roman auxilia. So, between, um,
10:55	·	Praewood and the Windridge farm up on
10:58	·	the hilltop down the valley to the Park
11:01	·	Street roundabout, you have this
11:03	·	wonderful coincidence of evidence coming
11:06	·	together. You have a landscape that we
11:09	·	know categorically Boudica was in that
11:11	·	landscape. It's recorded historically
11:14	·	that she was and we've got the
11:15	·	archaeology to show that she destroyed
11:16	·	the town a mile away. She we know she's
11:18	·	there. The landscape the topography fits
11:22	·	Tacitus very well and it's a perfect uh
11:25	·	topography of gentle slopes and and for
11:28	·	the for the Roman army to maneuver
11:30	·	around in the way that Tacitus
11:31	·	describes. But crucially to to crown it
11:34	·	all, you have that rarest of artifacts
11:37	·	in the British landscape, which is a a
11:39	·	cluster of Roman battle artifacts.
11:41	·	That's incredibly rare. And to say that
11:44	·	we're looking for the biggest battle
11:45	·	ever fought by the Romans in Britain,
11:47	·	and you coincidentally have this scatter
11:49	·	of battle artifacts at this place that
11:51	·	we can put Boudica, I think makes it by
11:53	·	far the most compelling candidate at the
11:56	·	moment.
11:57	·	So, the legend of Boudica may very well
11:59	·	come to an end under this roundabout.
12:01	·	Tastes says she takes poison rather than
12:03	·	become a prisoner. And Dio says she dies
12:05	·	of some illness, usually interpreted as
12:08	·	her succumbing to battle wounds. Boudica
12:10	·	has taken on so many forms and stories.
12:12	·	We will never truly know the events of
12:14	·	60 AD. But I don't doubt for a second
12:17	·	that her legacy will continue to be
12:18	·	spoken about or her image invoked for a
12:20	·	cause for decades to come. And isn't it
12:23	·	fun to think that this small roundabout
12:25	·	100 miles from her homeland played such
12:27	·	a defining role in that legacy?