History of England 1-6

The armies to the north and northwest proceeded slowly along existing roads, such as Ermine Street, attempting to pacify or subdue the various tribes in their path. They built forts in the conquered areas, so that each tribal zone was dominated by at least one military settlement. By AD 51 the queen of the great northern tribe of the Brigantes, Cartimandua, was receiving Roman wine in Roman vessels as well as building tiles. She had become a client queen. The historians of Rome describe a smooth progress of colonization, but the natives are unlikely to have surrendered without a fight; the process was one of steady advance beset by tribal rebellions and occasional army mutinies. Ambushes, raids and battles were commonplace. All the land south of the Fosse Way, running from Exeter to Lincoln, was under Roman control; the land north of it was more treacherous. Some tribes had divided allegiances; other tribes fought one against another.

A revolt in AD 47 by members of the tribe of Iceni, living deep within the pacified zone of East Anglia, was an indication of continuing uncertainty. The uprising, over the right to bear arms, was put down easily enough; but it was a harbinger for a much more serious rebellion that occurred thirteen years later. The name of Boudicca, or Boadicea, has now become part of English folklore. She was the wife of the king of the Iceni, Prasutagus, whose death prompted the agents of the Roman provincial government to attempt a wholesale appropriation of Iceni wealth. Boudicca was flogged, and her two daughters were raped. It was a signal instance of imperialist brutality.

So Boudicca rose and fought. She gathered into her confederacy other English tribes and launched an attack upon the Roman capital of Colchester. It was a particular object of offence because it harboured hundreds of military veterans who had taken control of adjacent land. The tribal army went southward, burning and pillaging any evidence of incipient Romanization. Villas were destroyed, their inhabitants put to the sword. When the warriors descended upon Colchester itself, they were ferocious. The city was destroyed by fire, the shops looted. The veterans took shelter in the central temple but after two days they were overwhelmed and hacked to pieces. A great statue of Claudius was beheaded and thrown into the river. The temple itself was destroyed. Boudicca then proceeded to move further south in the direction of London; Chelmsford and St Albans were sacked, and an entire legion massacred.

The Roman military governor, Suetonius Paulinus, was aware of the gravity of the threat posed to his regime. He had marched quickly back from Wales, where he had been campaigning, but his arrival in London did not save the city. He could not yield to the demands and supplications of the citizens; it was his duty to save the whole imperial province by a battle at a place and time of his own choosing. Many Londoners left the city in haste, going further south to find haven with pro-Roman tribes; those who remained were destroyed. Tacitus reports that 70,000 people were killed in the attack. The city itself was razed by fire, and there still exists beneath the City of London’s streets a red level of oxidized iron. Towards the end of the twentieth century forty-eight human skulls were found embedded in the track of the river Walbrook.

Boudicca now went after Suetonius Paulinus, on the evident assumption that the time was right for a final blow against the Roman occupation. The site of the ensuing battle is not certainly known; it may have been near the village of Mancetter in Warwickshire, or at Messing in Essex. Whatever the location, it was drenched in blood. Suetonius Paulinus had 10,000 troops, but they were ranged against a force of 100,000. The legionaries had a forest behind them, a plain before them; the native warriors ran against them, across the plain, but many of them were struck down by a hailstorm of javelins. The Romans then began to move forward with their shields and short swords. Their discipline held them steady, and slowly Boudicca’s men were turned. General carnage ensued, with 80,000 of her forces dead by the end of the battle. Some 400 Romans were killed. It was one of the most bloody massacres on English soil. Some say that Boudicca then took poison, so that she would avoid capture by the enemy; other sources report that she fell ill and died. Her monument now stands on Westminster Bridge as a token of the fight for native independence.