Boudicca (Boadicea) d.61 AD
 Queen of the Iceni, a people who lived in the present-day counties of Norfolk
and Suffolk. She led a rebellion against the Roman authorities as a result
of their mistreatment of her family and people after the death of her husband, Prasutagus, who may have been a Roman client-ruler, in 60 AD.
Boudicca, assisted by other disaffected tribes, sacked the cities of Colchester, St. Albans and London and, it is estimated, massacred approximately 70,000 Roman soldiers and civilians in the course of the glorious, but ill-fated rebellion. The rebels were finally defeated in battle by a force led by the Roman governor of Britain, Suetonius Paulinus, after which Boudicca took her own life by ingesting poison. A memorial statue by Thorneycroft of Boudicca, riding in her war chariot, stands alongside the Thames River in London, in the shadow of Big Ben.
|
