Bodicea/Boudicca: the facts

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Boudica - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Someone mentioned the ancient Briton woman who led a bloody revolt against Rome in the thread about taking guns back to AD 79.

Here's the Wiki entry on her. Interesting reading.

I know a British editor on another board who uses that as her board name. I suppose she finds it empowering. I've carefully refrained from pointing out that she was ultimately as successful as Joan of Arc...:D

Anyway, I thought that some here would enjoy reading about her. While she lasted, she flat raised Cain! The Romans were just desperate and better trained and disciplined. Probably better led, too.
 
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Interesting reading to be sure!
Boudica, like her modern counterparts suffered from the same deficiencies...lack of resources.
In the ancient world the Romans dominated because they had created a standardized system of military dominance - much like the United States today. And much like Iraq or Afghanistan today, Britain or the tiny part Queen Boudica controlled, was incapable of interdicting Roman resources.

The Romans only lost dominance after they began to rely heavily on conscripted soldiers from the surrounding territories rather than maintain a core Army of native-born Romans.
 
I've read about her some.

Dia duit!

Another one is Grace O'Malley. She's known as the Pirate Queen of Ireland. Patrick Pearse (executed in the 1916 Easter Uprising) wrote this about her. It's a popular song among Celtic recording artists. (BOAC outlawed the song on its flights):

Hail to you sorrowful woman
it was our woe that you were in captivity
your fine country in the possession of thieves
while you were sold to the foreigners.

Chorus:
Hurrah, welcome home
Hurrah, welcome home
Hurrah, welcome home
now at the coming of Summer.

Gráinne Mhaol is coming over the sea
armed warriors as her guard
they are Irish, not French or Spaniards
and they will put the English to flight.

Chorus

Thanks to the King of Miracles that we might see
although we might not live but a week afterwards
Gráinne Mhaol and a thousand warriors
declaring the scattering of the English.

In Irish (Gaelic is Scotch, Manse in from the Isle of Man, Irish is from Ireland==all very similar) the word for Thieves, Foreigners, and Englishmen is gallabh

It is also worth noting that, in 680 AD, the Viking rulers of Ireland prohibited Irish women from serving in the military. Could it have been from fear?

Slan
 
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Marshwheeling said:
That is just where I was going.:D

Can't remember where it was I read about her. I thought it was in Churchill's "History of the English Speaking Peoples", but the reference there is much briefer than the one I recall.
Click to expand...

Churchill unsurprisingly would not have spent a great deal of time on it - or perhaps it was edited out. That's a four volume set trying to encompass a thousand years of history.

I can't recall the name of it, but there was a series of shows on Discovery or History channel a few years back that delved into great historical battles, hosted by a father and son, with period costumed actors depicting various persons, with CGI effects showing battles. British accents but I'm sure it wasn't a BBC production. Boudica's revolt was one of the episodes, and I thought it was reasonably well done. Might need to do a little youtube research.

Edit: It was a BBC series after all, called Battlefield Britain.
 
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