Boudica Is Buried Under This Roundabout [12:42]

(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?

There's been just one site that has been found to contain a mass of human remains of the right age, and that is Cuttle Mill. Layout described by the Roman source conforms.

The rest of the Boudica keyword, sorted:

Paulerspury -- Development and Heritage [Battle of Watling Street] [05/19/2025]
The Mystery Location of Boudica's Battle. How to find it! #10 [04/15/2024]
Spiritual Traditions of Paganism Resurgent in Britain [11/12/2022]
Excavation Reveals New Insights Into Iceni People During Roman Period [09/04/2022]
Bouddica - Iceni Queen - Celtic Revenge on Rome [05/14/2021]
Silver Of The Iceni [03/13/2008]
She Crucified Her Enemies And Burnt London To The Ground. Meet Britain's First Feminist, Boadicea [02/07/2008]
Stunning Survey Unveils New Secrets Of Caistor Roman Town [12/13/2007]
Early Welsh warriors in red who once defeated the mighty Romans [03/24/2007]
Spain destroys lost Roman city for a car park [04/30/2006]
New View Of Mr Boudica [02/13/2006]
Return of the queen [06/30/2004]

What is a Roman ‘grippler’?

+10

😁 is that in the transcript, heh heh, the YouTube transcripting engine went hog wild, possibly because of the barely comprehensible speech patterns of the narration.

😁 s/b “Roman governor”. Artificial Intelligence is often Artificial Retardation.

I think this proposed location is in and around the lake.

It’s about 2:06 but the man there is speaking of Tacitus’ father-in-law, whose name was ‘Agricola’ and I think, with his accent, he is saying ‘Ag RIcla’ like that.

I’d pronounced it Agri-Cola (like a soft drink) forever, but it’s really ah GRICK ah lah.

gwendolin christie (brienne of tarth) should play boudica

IOW, good call!

They should put the time team on it

There was a big TV movie in Britain, hmm, probably ten or so years ago now, actress was perhaps Australian?

Wow, IMDB has five different ones, all 21st c. Must be a shift away from version after version of Cleopatra.

Oh, Alex Kingston (UK) was in the one I’d recalled. Actually, just the trailers and such, I’ve never seen any of them.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0005094/?ref_=mv_desc

https://www.imdb.com/find/?q=boudica&ref_=tturv_nv_srb_sm

Did I say five? I just clicked “more popular matches”. Big list.

Somewhat mythologized
But worthy

Nearly completely mythologized. I don't for a moment think B and her Ds were raped by the Romans. Roman writers had patrons, and both the writers and the patrons had agendas, the society had factions. We now call it fake news.

She was just a gold-digging, rabble-rousing, mass-murdering a-hole who didn't like her husband's will, and ultimately got what was coming to her.

She knew the main Roman force was over by Anglesey, and began her massacres, planning to finish off the main Roman settlements, then defeat the army by catching them on the hop.

I don't doubt that she went to her own death (wherever and whenever it happened) blissfully untroubled by the tens of thousands of people she dragged into her grave before and after her.

Roman’s were known for their fair and respectful treatment of people they were overthrowing.

LOL!

That’s how I’d pronounce it, like a soft drink. Meanwhile, I was looking up grippler on the net like crazy trying to figure out what the heck THAT was.😆

--> 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?