WEBVTT - Boudica Victoria 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:03.920 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.920 and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:13.680 advised before we start this episode in earnest, just one 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.520 quick reminder. I have a book coming out and it 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:21.400 comes out January. It's a novel called Anatomy, a love story, 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:23.800 and it's a story about a young woman who wants 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:26.800 to be a surgeon in the eighteen hundreds in Edinburgh 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.480 and Scotland during the dawn of surgery, and she falls 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.800 in love or does she with a resurrection man, a 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:36.599 guy who digs up dead bodies to sell to doctors, 0:00:36.640 --> 0:00:39.839 as was common practice during the nineteenth century. So if 0:00:39.880 --> 0:00:42.199 you like this podcast, I think it's going to be 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.040 really up your alley and it would mean the world 0:00:44.040 --> 0:00:46.599 to me if you wanted to read it. So it's 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.600 available for preorder now, you know, on Amazon or wherever 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.400 you get your books, your local indie bookstore ideally, and 0:00:53.479 --> 0:00:56.240 it's hopefully going to be available in every store where 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:59.760 you get your book starting January. So thank you so 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:02.920 much much for everyone for all their support. You could 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:06.959 support the show on Patreon, Patreon, dot com, slash, Noble 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:11.200 Blood Tails and I upload episode scripts there and also 0:01:11.280 --> 0:01:14.600 do bonus episodes talking about the TV show Rain on 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:17.560 the c W and the Tutors, and I'm thinking of 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.880 doing bonus episodes on the Great but yeah, you can 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:22.839 find all that there. Thank you so much to everyone 0:01:22.880 --> 0:01:25.400 who supports the show. But as always, the best support 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.560 is just listening. So thank you to everyone who's listened, 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:40.800 and let the show come into two. There's a statue 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:45.000 in London, on the western side of Westminster Bridge, a 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:49.520 statue that stands ten ft tall. It's a bronze statue 0:01:49.800 --> 0:01:54.480 depicting a woman riding in a chariot pulled by two horses. 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:59.240 The woman stands with both hands raised arms above her head, 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:03.640 like an o singer or ava Perone standing on a balcony, 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.920 except unlike ava Peron, and unlike most opera singers, the 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.440 woman holds in one of her upraised hands a spear. 0:02:12.440 --> 0:02:16.359 Her hair is braided beneath a crown. On either side 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:20.480 of her are two smaller women, her daughters. It's very 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.920 clearly a statue of a warrior, and the figure has 0:02:23.960 --> 0:02:26.400 been sculpted in such a way to convey to the 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.960 viewer that this woman was brave and fearsome, though not 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:35.360 so brave and fearsome that she's not also conventionally beautiful. 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:40.240 Her gown, a simple classical shroud beneath a cloak, clings 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.600 close enough to her body that you can make out 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:46.840 the contours of her belly and her breasts. She's a 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:50.680 warrior woman, the statue says, but she's still a woman. 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:55.960 The statue, originally sculpted by Thomas Thornycroft in the late 0:02:56.000 --> 0:03:01.120 eighteen hundreds, is a representation of Boudica, the warrior queen 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:05.160 of Britain, who fended off the invading Roman forces for 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:10.359 a little while in a surprising but ultimately unsuccessful rebellion. 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:17.160 As described by the statues plinth, she is quote Boudica Budetica, 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:21.280 Queen of the Assni, who died a d. Sixty one 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:26.840 after leading her people against the Roman invader. If you're 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:30.200 British or were schooled in Great Britain or the Commonwealth, 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:34.680 you're almost certainly familiar with Boudica as she's most commonly 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:38.840 referred to. But if you're American, her story might be 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:42.840 a little less familiar. It's a classic tale of David 0:03:42.960 --> 0:03:46.760 verse Goliath, even if this is a case in which 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:52.360 Goliath uses his considerable armed forces and superior weaponry and 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:58.360 organizational strategy to defeat David. But I'm not just interested 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:02.840 in the story of Utica. I'm interested in the idea 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.440 of her, or rather how the idea of her has 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:12.560 changed over time. You see Thomas Thorneycroft sculpture was finally 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.120 cast in bronze and erected in nine two, at the 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.159 end of the reign of Queen Victoria. The statue is 0:04:20.200 --> 0:04:25.320 in an undeniable place of prominence, overlooking the Thames, facing 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:29.720 straight toward perhaps the two most enduring symbols of London 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:35.040 and centralized British power, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:40.000 The Boudica was a relatively obscure figure for most of 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:45.440 British history. In the Victorian era, she exploded in popularity, 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.600 becoming a figure not only in the popular, artistic and 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:52.760 literary movements of the day, but becoming a national heroine, 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:57.919 a symbol of Britain, a face for the feminized representation 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:04.440 of the abstract now national term Britannia. Boudica was a 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:08.920 heroic warrior, but it might strike you, as it struck me, 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:12.120 that she's an unusual choice to be the heroine of 0:05:12.240 --> 0:05:18.480 Victorian times, a period often stereotyped as one of piety, domesticity, 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:23.880 and female obedience, the era that's become synonymous with women 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:28.040 in tight corsets being afraid to talk about sex. That 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.520 era certainly doesn't seem to be a natural fit for 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.520 stories about a woman who led armies into battle with 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:39.840 her hair hanging wild behind her. Plus she was a pagan, 0:05:40.520 --> 0:05:44.720 a wild heretic who used divination and looked to nature 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:49.839 for advice and guidance, and she uh burned London to 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:54.200 the ground. We'll get to that later. But even all 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:59.719 that aside, one might imagine buttoned up Victorian Christianity having 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.520 a were challenging time embracing a story that ends with 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:09.560 a hero committing the sin of suicide. History, as much 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:13.839 as it's about telling stories, is about examining the reasons 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:19.479 we choose to tell certain stories and when, to very 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:23.719 loosely paraphrase one of the many Batman movies, a city 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:28.880 gets the hero it needs. In sixty A d. Boudica 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:33.520 fought for her life, her family, and her homeland, and then, 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:37.200 almost two thousand years later, even though the nation she 0:06:37.320 --> 0:06:41.120 lived in had a different name, she was resurrected to 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:46.760 continue to fight. I'm Dana Schwartz and this is Noble Blood. 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.360 A trigger warning for anyone listening who might be sensitive 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:11.280 to particular content. This episode contains sexual violence. Almost all 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.640 of our information on Buddhica comes from two classical sources, 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.760 both written a few decades after Boudica's death. The first 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.720 is by Tacitus, who actually spoke to witnesses about Boudica's 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:28.240 uprising firsthand. Tacitus's father in law was actually a Roman 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:32.120 governor of Britain. The second source was written by a 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:35.800 man named Cassius Dio, who was seemingly based most of 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.200 his account on the words of Tacitus, the age old 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.400 strategy of copying but changing it just enough so that 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:47.440 the teacher won't get suspicious. For classical historians at the time, 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:51.640 it was common practice to include in their histories long, 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:56.760 flowery speeches supposedly given by their subjects. It made the 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:00.840 history more interesting to read, more relevant to readers, and 0:08:00.880 --> 0:08:03.320 it was a chance for the authors to add some 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:07.480 color or moral teachings. But it's important for us to 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.920 remember that these speeches are meant to be evocative, but 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:16.240 not direct transcriptions. So though Cassius Dio and Tacitus both 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:20.120 wrote down what Boudica allegedly said to her troops. It's 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.800 not meant to be taken verbatim, after all, Boudica wasn't 0:08:23.840 --> 0:08:30.119 speaking Latin or Greek. We're not certain when Boudica was born. 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.640 It's not recorded anywhere or reported with any real certainty, 0:08:34.679 --> 0:08:38.280 but most likely it was around thirty a d. Most 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.760 likely somewhere around the present day English city of Colchester. 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.240 Bouddhica spent most of her life in and around what 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:49.120 is now considered East Anglia, to the northeast of London, 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:53.280 and though there's no source that makes it absolutely certain, 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.920 it's likely that she was born into a prominent family, 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.520 if not noble, then considered well bred and well respected. 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:06.319 In forty three a d. What's known as the Claudian 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:11.280 Invasion of Britain began. Emperor Claudius in Rome began his 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.439 conquest of southern Britain, or as it would have been 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:19.160 called by the Romans, Britannia. I imagine what this must 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.679 have been like for a teenage Boudica, seeing legions of 0:09:22.760 --> 0:09:28.320 strangers carrying weapons marching over her green hills, then making camp, 0:09:28.520 --> 0:09:33.079 laughing and jeering in a language she didn't understand. It 0:09:33.120 --> 0:09:36.400 was around this time that Boudica got married to a 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:40.240 man named press Tagus, the leader of the Aseni tribe 0:09:40.600 --> 0:09:45.360 the Britonic people living around present day Norfolk. Sources claim 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:49.160 that press Tagus was long reigning, which means it's probable 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:53.160 that he was already king when he married Boudica. Boudica 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.880 was tall and athletic. Women would have trained in weapons 0:09:56.920 --> 0:10:00.000 alongside men, which meant that she knew her way or 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.720 und a sword as well as anyone. She had long, 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:08.200 ginger hair that reached her waist and piercing eyes, and 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.880 she often wore a golden necklace and a cloak fastened 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:17.920 with a brooch. Rather than fight the Romans, Prasatagus made 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:22.480 the pragmatic decision to ally with them. It became a 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:27.720 mutually beneficial partnership in which the Assane people offered assistance 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.160 to the Romans in their invasion and assistant and putting 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:36.360 down revolts against other nearby tribes, and in return, Romans 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:41.400 allowed Prasatagus and the Assane people protection and they're much 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:47.480 valued independence. It worked out, at least it did until 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:53.400 Prasatagus died in around sixty a d In his will, 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.320 Prasatagus left half of his fortune to his wife, Buddhica 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:00.920 and their two daughters. The other half of his property 0:11:01.200 --> 0:11:03.880 he left to the Roman emperor, who by this point 0:11:04.080 --> 0:11:07.560 was Nero. It was meant to be a generous offering, 0:11:08.040 --> 0:11:11.640 a symbolic deference, as if to say, hey, you can 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:14.400 have half of my holdings, but for the other half, 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:19.360 let's keep that mutually beneficial, salutary neglect situation going on. 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:24.360 But the Roman Empire is known for many things, and 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:28.000 mercy towards people that they want to conquer is not 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:33.319 one of them. They flat out ignored Prasatagus's will and 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:38.120 claimed all of his property. When Buddhica attempted to defend 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:42.880 their home from invading soldiers, the soldiers captured her. They 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:47.120 tied her up and flogged her, blood dripping down her back, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.960 and torn pieces of skin that would leave painful wealths 0:11:51.160 --> 0:11:54.320 and then scars for the rest of her life. But 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:59.200 that wasn't enough, it seems, to send the message. The 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:03.640 Roman sold stormed into Buddhica's home and raped both of 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:08.640 her daughters. The Romans knew that Boudica was a queen 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:12.320 and a leader that she had the capacity to rally 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:16.679 the Asne people behind her. They meant the flogging and 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:21.280 the cruel violation of her daughters to be such a humiliation, 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:25.000 such a trauma, that it would break her and leave 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:31.120 her defeated. It had the exact opposite effect. Buddhica began 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.480 rallying troops to expel the Romans from Britain. There was 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:39.960 precedent stories from history that inspired her and inspired the 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:45.520 people who followed her. A few decades earlier, in nine 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:49.199 a d Prince Arminius of the Cheruski people drove the 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.520 Romans out of his land in present day Germany and 0:12:52.559 --> 0:12:56.160 even in Britain. Julius Caesar himself had been defeated and 0:12:56.240 --> 0:13:00.600 forced to retreat, and so Buddica gathered men and women 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:05.240 to fight alongside her. As she allegedly said in a speech, 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:10.000 it is not as a woman descended from noble ancestry, 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:14.320 but as one of the people that I'm avenging lost freedom, 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:19.880 my scourged body, the outraged chastity of my daughters. To 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:24.800 subtly encourage men to fight alongside her, she challenged their 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:29.880 manliness by adding, this is a woman's resolve. As for men, 0:13:30.200 --> 0:13:35.360 you may live and be slaves. Eventually, her army had 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:39.320 over one hundred and twenty thousand troops, both from the 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.840 Ane and from the neighboring tribe with whom she allied 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:47.880 against their mutual enemy. To the shock of the Romans, 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:53.160 Buddhica and her soldiers fought and one they defeated the 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:57.520 Roman ninth Legion and sacked the city of Camelodnan. They 0:13:57.559 --> 0:14:02.360 continued on pillaging and fighting, burning down homes and Roman 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:06.520 settlements in the Roman cities of Verylamnium modern day Saint 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:11.400 Albans and Londonium, which you might have correctly guessed is 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:16.960 where London now stands. Boudica put her faith in a 0:14:17.040 --> 0:14:20.120 number of pagan rituals in order to lead her troops. 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:23.960 One involved taking a hare and putting him under the 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:27.560 many layers of her skirts. She would then lift her 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:31.080 skirts and release the animal and watch the direction that 0:14:31.120 --> 0:14:33.960 the hare chose to run in. She knew that whichever 0:14:34.040 --> 0:14:39.080 way it went had some symbolic meaning. As Boudica and 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:44.480 her soldiers marched, they desecrated Roman cemeteries, breaking tombstones and 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:48.800 knocking statues down. Some of those broken statues are still 0:14:48.920 --> 0:14:52.960 on display today at the Colchester Museum, a centuries old 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:57.640 reminder of anger and fury towards an invading army, made 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:03.000 symbol in broken stone that last to this day. What 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.640 helped Boudica in these early battles was the fact that 0:15:06.680 --> 0:15:09.680 the Roman governor of the province, a man named Gaius 0:15:09.680 --> 0:15:14.880 Suetonius Paulinus, was away during her attacks. He was leading 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.000 a campaign on the Welsh island Mona when he heard 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:21.960 about the staggering defeats that his countrymen were suffering on 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:28.240 the east side of Britain. Enough was enough, Suetonius decided 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:32.840 he would bring his troops towards Boudica for a final confrontation. 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:38.800 There's plenty of disagreement among historians about where this final 0:15:38.840 --> 0:15:43.600 battle took place. Presumably it was somewhere between vera Limium 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:47.680 and Londinium. Some claim it was along a Roman road 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:52.000 called Watling Street. What we do know is that Boudica, 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:56.800 her waist length ginger hair flowing behind her, rode in 0:15:56.840 --> 0:16:00.360 a chariot up and down her ranks to rally her 0:16:00.400 --> 0:16:05.520 troops before battle. Nothing is safe from Roman pride and arrogance, 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:10.440 she shouted. One historian claims, they will deface the sacred 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:15.080 and will deflower our virgins. Win the battle or perish. 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:21.200 That is what I, a woman will do. The Bouddhica 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:25.200 had numbers on her side, Stonius had the advantage when 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:30.040 it came to weaponry and strategy, with his ten thousand 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:34.440 soldiers mainly from the fourteenth Legion. He first made a 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:38.800 tactical withdrawal in order to draw Buddhica into battle on 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:43.560 his terms. When the battle began, the Romans began by 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:47.160 throwing javelins at Buddhica in her army, which led to 0:16:47.320 --> 0:16:52.000 massive casualties in minutes before the two armies had even 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:56.360 really engaged. The Romans then advanced to move in for 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:00.320 the kill. With short swords that allowed them flexible ality 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:05.560 of movement. They turned Boudica's numbers against her. She and 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:09.760 her army were trapped in their tight ranks. Their weapons, 0:17:09.800 --> 0:17:13.480 which were mostly long swords, were difficult to use against 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:16.520 the Romans who came in so close and so fast, 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:22.480 and then Suetonius released the cavalry, which encircled Boudica's army 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:26.360 from behind. It was only another few moments after that 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:31.960 until the battle was over. Eighty thousand of Boudica's Britons 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:37.400 were killed. There were a comparatively few four hundred dead Romans. 0:17:38.600 --> 0:17:42.520 Boudica was captured alive, but she knew the fate waiting 0:17:42.560 --> 0:17:45.320 for her would be worse than death. She would be 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.439 raped by her Roman captors, or forced to become a slave, 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:53.159 or both, and so before that could happen, Boudica drank 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:57.639 poison and killed herself. We don't know what happened to 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.520 her two daughters. Some claim that they killed themselves as well, 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:06.280 but they also might have died in battle. Her revolt 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:11.800 was ultimately unsuccessful, although for a moment it almost persuaded 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:15.119 Emperor Nero that the conquest of Britain was more trouble 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.359 than it was worth. Still, the story of a woman 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:22.320 brutalized who then rose up against her presser was one 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:26.800 worth recording. Tacitus and Cassius Dio wrote in the late 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.080 first century, and then it would be another few hundred 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.880 years before Boudica would appear in another major source, this 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.560 time a sixth century book by a British monk named 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:43.080 Gildas called on the Ruin and Conquest of Britain, in 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:49.600 which Guildess describes Buddhica not unflatteringly as a treacherous lioness. 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.040 Though Boudica was mentioned here and there for the next 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:58.199 few centuries after that, she didn't become anything resembling a 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:02.240 folk hero or even a may stream historical figure until 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:06.600 the reign of Elizabeth the First, the last Tudor queen, 0:19:06.720 --> 0:19:09.679 happened to be reigning during a period in which the 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:14.200 classical work of scholars from ancient Greece and Rome were rediscovered, 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:19.399 including the writings of Tacitus and Cassius Dia, and Boudica 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:24.600 was a heroine ready made analogous to their own ginger haired, 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:29.560 notably tall Queen Elizabeth. Boudica seemed to be especially relevant 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:32.679 to their own queen when Elizabeth the First made a 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:36.240 speech to her troops at Tilbury before facing off against 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:40.920 the invasion of the Spanish Armada. Both queens were mere 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:46.440 women leading massive groups of men against foreign invaders. Elizabeth 0:19:46.680 --> 0:19:52.439 was more successful than her historical counterpart. After Elizabeth's reign, 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:57.320 interest in Buddhica waned slightly during and after the reign 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:00.240 of James the First and sixth, the King of scotl Land, 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:04.280 who ruled England after Elizabeth's death. Buddhica was seen with 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.960 a little bit of suspicion, to say nothing of the 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:13.320 misogyny that you might expect. In the sixteen hundreds, John Milton, 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:18.879 in his History of Britain, frames Boudica as shameless, a 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.600 wild heridan who should have kept her mouth shut. But 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:26.800 Milton was notable for his misogyny across the board. He 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.080 didn't think any woman should occupy a position of power, 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:35.120 least of all a woman with heretical attitudes. But by 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.560 the mid to late seventeen hundreds, Boudica began to re 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:42.960 emerge as a historical figure, and an incredibly useful one, 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:48.600 a historical figure who also acted as a symbol. Boudica 0:20:48.680 --> 0:20:51.600 became not just a woman who fought and lost against 0:20:51.600 --> 0:20:55.600 the Romans in a d but a symbol for Britain 0:20:56.040 --> 0:21:02.080 as a nation. Female personification of countries is a global tradition. 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:07.199 In America, there's a famous painting by John Gast called 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:12.000 American Progress or manifest Destiny. If you took a p 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:15.040 U S History, you probably had to study it for 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:19.399 your a P test. It's a painting in which idealized 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:23.199 American pioneers travel from the right side of the canvas, 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:27.240 painted to look like a growing dawn towards the dark, 0:21:27.520 --> 0:21:32.840 shadowy West, where Native Americans brandish their weapons beneath dim clouds. 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:38.280 The covered wagons, cowboys, and trains make their way towards 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:43.560 America's expansionist destiny, and they're guided along by a massive 0:21:43.840 --> 0:21:48.119 female figure towering high as the mountains in the background 0:21:48.119 --> 0:21:52.080 of the picture. The woman, meant to be Liberty or 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:57.760 America or God's purpose for American expansion, is bedecked with 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:02.520 blonde curls. She wears a one shoulder toga, evoking the 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:08.639 classical democracies of antiquity. In France, the female personification of 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:13.040 the nation is sometimes called Marianne. Picture the famous Eugene 0:22:13.080 --> 0:22:17.439 Delacroix painting Liberty Leading the People, in which a woman 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:21.960 raises high the tricolor flag. It's the painting Cold Play 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:25.000 used for their Viva Levita album cover. If you need 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:30.240 help remembering. Like the American figure of Liberty, this figure 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:35.159 also wears a one shoulder toga, although maybe a predictable 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:41.160 French fashion, her toga reveals both of her breasts, though Boudica, 0:22:41.280 --> 0:22:46.840 unlike America's blonde giantess and Frances, Marianne was a real 0:22:46.960 --> 0:22:51.560 person she served more or less the same symbolic purpose. 0:22:52.400 --> 0:22:56.679 William Cowper was a famous eighteenth century poet. In his 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.600 work he actually coined the phrases God moves in a 0:22:59.680 --> 0:23:03.679 mysteri arious way and variety is the very spice of life. 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:10.000 But in his seventeen eighty poem Boudica and Ode, he wrote, she, 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:14.600 with all a monarch's pride, felt them in her bosom glow, 0:23:15.200 --> 0:23:19.800 rushed to battle, fought and died, dying, hurled them at 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:25.400 the foe Ruffians, pitiless as proud, Heaven awards the vengeance 0:23:25.480 --> 0:23:30.359 due Empire is on us, bestowed shame and ruin Wait 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:40.960 for you. And then Buddhica became permanently entrenched in British culture. 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:45.280 In eighteen thirty seven, when a young woman that they 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:51.280 began calling Victoria became queen of their empire, Boudica became 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:55.720 the emblem of Victoria's power, a comparison made easy by 0:23:55.760 --> 0:23:59.480 the helpful coincidence that the root of the name Buddhica 0:24:00.040 --> 0:24:04.400 comes from either the Celtic or the Welsh word for victory, 0:24:04.480 --> 0:24:08.480 which meant that she and Victoria basically had the same 0:24:08.560 --> 0:24:12.879 name During a period when Brits might have begun to 0:24:12.960 --> 0:24:16.720 fear that their empire would be in decline. Boudica became 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:21.560 a helpful tool to bolster national pride, a rallying symbol. 0:24:22.200 --> 0:24:26.400 Victorian children were forced in their classrooms to learn William 0:24:26.440 --> 0:24:29.760 Cowper's poem by heart, and there was a renewed interest 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:33.199 in trying to find out where exactly her battles took place. 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:38.479 Attention towards Boudica reached a zenith during eight nine four, 0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:43.399 when archaeologists excitedly determined that an earthwork on the north 0:24:43.480 --> 0:24:46.399 side of Parliament Hill might be the site of the 0:24:46.440 --> 0:24:51.760 any queen's final resting place. Though the land was excavated 0:24:51.840 --> 0:24:55.640 and no grave was found, the public hubbabaloo of everyone 0:24:55.680 --> 0:25:00.439 talking about the ancient queen gave John Isaac Thorneycraft boost 0:25:00.480 --> 0:25:03.919 he needed to help raise funds to finally cast the 0:25:03.920 --> 0:25:08.320 sculpture made by his by now late father Thomas Thornycroft, 0:25:08.640 --> 0:25:12.639 who died before ever seeing his plaster cast set in bronze. 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:19.120 In two his sculpture Boudica and her Daughters was finally 0:25:19.160 --> 0:25:23.639 erected on Westminster Bridge, a permanent tribute to the woman 0:25:23.680 --> 0:25:27.680 who tried to burn London to the ground. To this day, 0:25:27.840 --> 0:25:37.199 She's still considered a national heroine of Britain. That's the 0:25:37.240 --> 0:25:40.960 story of Boudica and the story of the story of Boudica. 0:25:41.080 --> 0:25:44.280 But keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear 0:25:44.359 --> 0:25:48.360 a little bit more about rumors that still persist around her. 0:26:01.400 --> 0:26:05.000 There's still no historical consensus as to the location of 0:26:05.040 --> 0:26:11.240 Boudica's remains. One magical but almost certainly not true, holds 0:26:11.280 --> 0:26:14.639 that Boudica was buried in the ashes of Londinium and 0:26:14.720 --> 0:26:18.320 that a train station sprung up in the centuries after 0:26:18.359 --> 0:26:22.520 her death. The rumor is that Boudica's body happens to 0:26:22.560 --> 0:26:27.480 be located far beneath the bricks, directly between platforms nine 0:26:27.560 --> 0:26:32.200 and ten, where at platform nine and three quarters another 0:26:32.320 --> 0:26:37.040 symbol of Britannia has made his claim. Another theory, and 0:26:37.160 --> 0:26:40.120 one I quite like, even though I have absolutely no 0:26:40.320 --> 0:26:45.200 expertise to evaluate its historical accuracy. Actually that's not true. 0:26:45.240 --> 0:26:48.600 In my limited expert opinion, I'll say this one is 0:26:49.000 --> 0:26:53.040 not true. But the idea is that the mysterious Circle 0:26:53.119 --> 0:26:57.600 of Stonehenge was erected in Boudica's honor as a funeral arrangement. 0:26:58.320 --> 0:27:01.240 This was a speculation first put forward by the writer 0:27:01.480 --> 0:27:04.320 Edmund Bolton, who lived in the court of James the 0:27:04.359 --> 0:27:08.720 first and six. I think his historical basis was mostly 0:27:08.800 --> 0:27:12.440 that it would be cool the theory of whoa can 0:27:12.480 --> 0:27:17.520 you imagine what a fun coincidence? A more likely theory 0:27:17.760 --> 0:27:21.280 is one that gives us less to hold onto. We 0:27:21.359 --> 0:27:24.240 don't know how the Iceni tribe dealt with their dead, 0:27:24.359 --> 0:27:28.720 or what their rituals around funerals were, but some other 0:27:28.840 --> 0:27:32.560 tribes in Britain during the Bronze Age simply laid their 0:27:32.600 --> 0:27:36.560 dead out in special places to be desiccated by the 0:27:36.680 --> 0:27:40.639 elements out in the open. It's possible that that's what 0:27:40.760 --> 0:27:44.520 happened to Boudica. If so, there would be nothing left 0:27:44.520 --> 0:27:49.199 of her. She's gone, disappeared into the British soil and 0:27:49.400 --> 0:27:54.040 air and water, nothing left except what we want her 0:27:54.119 --> 0:28:05.200 to be. Noble Blood is a production of I Heart 0:28:05.280 --> 0:28:08.560 Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. The show 0:28:08.600 --> 0:28:12.640 is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz. Executive producers include 0:28:12.640 --> 0:28:17.119 Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The show is 0:28:17.160 --> 0:28:21.159 produced by rema Ill Kali and Trevor Young. Noble Blood 0:28:21.200 --> 0:28:24.000 is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you 0:28:24.000 --> 0:28:26.240 can learn more about the show over at Noble blood 0:28:26.240 --> 0:28:29.280 Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I heart Radio, 0:28:29.680 --> 0:28:33.040 visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:28:33.080 --> 0:28:36.000 you listen to your favorite shows. M