Author(s): Vanessa Collingridge

Biography & Memoir

'I am fighting as an ordinary person for my lost freedom, my bruised body and outraged daughters.' Tacitus account of the Boudican revolt The Queen of Iceni has been immortalised as the woman who dared take on the Romans to avenge her daughters, her tribe and her enslaved country. In the year AD60 the widowed Boudica raised an army which posed the most serious threat to Roman expansion so far. Avenging the rape of her daughters, Boudica and her army razed three key Roman towns, including London, and committing acts of great brutality in a frenzy of scorched earth warfare. The legend of Boudica grew out of the clashes between the old world of myth and the new world of Imperial strategy, between the male-dominated Roman society and the matriarchy of Iron Age Briton. Her known life is a rich tapestry of wife, widow, mother, queen and Celtic quasi-Goddess. But Boudica's true history is dark and shocking, and new archaeological evidence is being discovered every day which fills the gaps in her life-story and brings new depth and terrifying detail to the worn-out myths. From the matriachal tribes of her East Anglian childhood to the battlefields of her defeat and suicide (over 80,000 Briton were killed in the rebellion, trapped between the Romans and their own encampments and families) this is an evocatively told story, bringing much new research and insight to one of the key figures in British history and mythology. From the author of the much praised Captain Cook comes a major new historical biography; a gripping and enlightening recreation of Boudica, her life, her adversaries, and the truth of her nature.