After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - How Boudica Took On The Roman Empire

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

Ancient Britain was occupied by the Romans, and tension was building with local tribes.Their brutal occupation reached a breaking point.So what happened when Queen Boudica stood up to the might of the Roman Empire? Bloody battles followed and Roman occupation in Britain changed forever. Her incredible life and story will shock and surprise you.Taking you back to Iron Age Britain is the incredible historian and author Kate Williams, who joins Anthony to immerse us in Boudica's world.Edited by Hannah Feodorov. Produced by Stuart Beckwith. Senior Producer is Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Smoke rising above burning cities. Soldiers lying butchered in the roads of Britannia, Lundinium abandoned to the flames. Roman Britain was on its knees. At the head of a vast tribal army stands a woman Rome never saw coming. Budica, or at least that's what we think she was called. Flogged, dishonoured, her daughters brutalised, she transformed grief into fury and called Celtic Britain to war. So from the war chariot of Budica herself, this is After Dark. Hello and welcome to After Dark. My name is Dr Anthony Delaney and we are back for more dastardly deeds from the dark side of history. And who better to help us through some of these deeds than Professor Kate Williams.

Kate, welcome to After Dark. Thank you for having me. How has it taken us this long to have you on this podcast? I'm thrilled to be on the show. I'm such a fan. And I'm thrilled. Well, I am delighted to have you here. We are going to talk about different elements from your new book over two episodes, Regina,

and this is a new history of women and power. It's out on the 4th of June. Do get yourself a copy. I was very lucky to read an early edition of this. You are going to want to get your hands on this. How are you feeling? Because it's a big old process, isn't it? Getting the book out.

And then suddenly you're like, oh, my God, I need to have deadlines. And then this has to happen and blah, blah, blah, blah. And then suddenly you're heading out to book. in the next few weeks. How are you feeling about the whole thing? Are you, are you, you're very good of being calm and being all together. Oh, it's terrifying. It's terrifying. You spend so long writing the book, as you know, Anthony, spent someone writing it. You're deep in there with the people. And then you press send and you can't get it back. You can't, you can't change anything. You can't alter anything. It's got to go. It's got to go out in the world. So that send when I

knew that was the last time I could fiddle or tinker was a painful moment. But I'm, I'm ready to see it out in the world. I've signed lots of copies now for bookshop. So it's going out there. And I mean, there are a lot of queens in there. I think there's about 80 queens in there that I've stuffed in all the queens. So I hope that if they're out there reading a copy that these queens like it. But yes, the transition from beavering at home under your electric blanket writing away. And then the transition from beavering away in the archives when no one knows what you're doing and you're just scribbling away in the archives to out it goes into the wild. There it is.

It's not yours anymore. The panda has run away. The panda has run away. One thing I also want to mention, because this is a little bit personal now, but we're going to do it. We don't do this on After Dark very often, but we have listeners who have this board. They've made a board game for After Dark, right? And it's a drinking game so that every time we do certain things, they take a drink or they take a shot. So they posted this on social media.

We were absolutely obsessed with it. But one of the things is when Anthony gushes about the guest. And I am going to gush about you, Kate, because this woman is one of the most generous historians. And it's not being too kind at all. And I've spoken about this with Kate Lister and we've spoken with this with Eleanor Yenega. You are so, so generous in a field that is very crowded and that's very, you know, not competitive. Because actually we're quite good as a community. but you are so good at promoting other people's work,

you're so good at showing up. And when I met you for the first time, you offered to endorse queer Georgians without me having to ask, which is always a very awkward conversation to have. Sometimes you're just like, oh, I like to offer. And you were so, so generous.

Well, it was a brilliant book. Well, thank you. And you kindly said, but you were very kind to read vagina as all, but queer Georgians is brilliant. So it was a pleasure to work on it. This is why she's generous. She's turning it around to my thing,

but you, people should know you, You are so, so generous. And I think that's, it's not rare, but you are especially good at it. Well, when I think sometimes when I started out, I found that not everyone was always very welcoming. So I always made a vow that. Yeah. Well, you've stuck to that. And I can attest to that.

Now, let's talk about Regina. No, I'm really not. It's true. But let's talk about your new masterpiece book, Regina. What drew you to this particular topic? Because sometimes the word power and the word women and history doesn't necessarily, in people's minds, doesn't necessarily sit very easily together that we see women as being disempowered. But actually, you've taken a bit of a new slant on this in this book. I'm so fascinated by the story of queens.

And I've written on Queens before. I've written on Mo Queen of Scots. I've written on Victoria and Elizabeth Second and various stories of female monarchy. But I'm just so struck by these queens because you look at them and they are often the most visible women in their society. They're the ones that we remember. They're the ones that we talk about. Yes, we talk about the kings much more. But we do often remember the queens.

But they are the ones that have these stories spun about them. And so frequently we see the same stories spun about them. They can't manage money. They can't manage power. Cleopatra is led by her crazy desires and she loses Egypt. Marie Antoinette is spendthrift, brings down the whole of France with her desire for shoes and hairstyles. Catherine the Great might have done some good things for Russia, but in the end, she gives in to her lascivious desires and dies under a horse. And these stories over and over again, and even, you know, Anne Berlin, no one would say that Henry was the best husband ever, but you often see what's saying here.

She wasn't very good at creating allies. She wasn't a very nice person. And we can see some sort of culpability there. Whereas I think that actually Anne did create a lot of our lives. It's just that they fled the minute that they heard Henry was coming for her. And so all these stories are just spun about women and power, which really, I think, crystallise around queens are so indicative, I think. I think that we can say, oh, it doesn't matter what we say about Elizabeth I first. It doesn't matter what we say about Marianne Twinnett. It doesn't matter what we say about Mary Queen of Scots, that she was a failure and had terrible husbands.

But I think it does. I think that if these are the stories we tell about women and parents, it doesn't. then it won't, it doesn't bolster trying to give women more power and more representation in the modern world. I'm just so interested in how we often vote and cheer the heroic men, whether it's Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar or Henry the Fifth, people who are perceived as great, great men, but often the queens who are most talked about are the ones who are perceived as failures. and they're perceived as tragic failures or noble failures

and they're perceived as losing, even though they didn't. But that's what people seem to want. And even when they aren't necessarily perceived as failures, or if you're not concentrating on the failureness of it, often what it is is, didn't she have lovely gowns? And all of that is true too. And actually, in some ways, the power comes through the gowns. You can interpret it like that.

But it's not just about when you're talking about queen-ship, And I think this is one of the things that really stood out to me in this book is that it's not necessarily a question of power and women. It's how that already overlaps in history, that they are standing side by side, that these people are power brokers. They are warriors in some cases. They are politicians that are really shaping their political and their power structures in their own society. And actually, often what we do is we distill them down to a crown. or a gown or something that's far more visual. So what you're talking about there is they don't get the same political weight attached

to them as the men do. But for this, we're going slightly different because we're not talking about gowns and thrones necessarily for this, because we're going quite a bit back. And we're going to talk about somebody who is part history, part myth, and we'll get into all of this. But before we do, I want to know how on earth you pronounce this name. I am from Ireland, as you know, and I didn't grow up with this history or this legend in the same way as people in England do. I'm talking about Budica, of course. That's who we're going to be talking about in this episode.

But I've also heard Budica, Budacia, Bodhis. What do we know about that pronunciation? And why is there a question mark even? Budica has had so many different pronunciations. And certainly when I was a child, it was Bodicea. And what we think is what we don't actually know what her real name was. It may be that Budika was a title about the victory bringer, because it comes from the word Buddha victory, booty victory. And so what happens is Tacitus, who is one of our main sources, Tacitus in Cassius Dio, he calls her Budica, which we believe was her name, but he put a double C in there.

And then I think a rather over-exhausted medieval scribe changes the C to an E and it becomes Bodicea. And we see her popping up as then Vodicea. She pops up as Vodicea. We've got a Hollinghead's Chronicles has a rather Elizabethan-looking Bodhisir in a very patterned dress waving a hair, which we'll get to. So there's Vodicea. But then I think it's really in the 18th century that it becomes Bodecéeheseeer with Cowper's poem, William Cowper's poem and then we have

Bodicea and her daughters which is up there by the Thames big statue by Thomas Thornacroft based the horses are based on Prince Albert's horses

and Bodica's daughters are topless as you would be going into war I think it's a very practical idea in freezing cold Britain I think just the thing

in February in February why not why not yes exactly so Budaika's reputation her name

has changed. And I, this is my theory. It might be, I don't know, it's just a theory. Is it there something sort of softer and something more feminine about Bodicea and that's why it became adopted by the 18th century, by the romantics, by the Victorians? So true. If you think about what that sounds like, just the ring of Bodicea, there's a romanticism to it, isn't there? It's far more feminine sounding in that sense. Then Frudica, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is actually far more intriguing in some sense. Let's go back to what we do know then about because I love this and we'll talk about all that layer over time of myth making around this woman and this figure. Oh, she's being surrounded by myths.

Mythologized, mythologized. But take us back to what we know. What was Britain like before the Romans arrived? Because this was the world that this Budica figure would have inhabited. So Budica, she is a royal woman in the Aisenni or Ikeni tribe. We can pronounce it either way. More pronunciations. She is a royal woman there.

She is a very significant royal woman. And one of the very key things about Budica is that we often think that she's a queen regnant leading her troops into battle against the Romans. But she's not. She's the queen consort of the king. The king has died, King Posutiga. She's the queen consort. And one of her daughters is going to be the queen regnant.

But we never know that woman's name. never know the name of the actual queen of Ikenny. What we know is Budica. And so what was Roman Britain like? Well, Budica would never have known a world which didn't have Roman influence. So her rebellion is in the first century AD. We go back to 55 BC when Julia Caesar thinks, well, I know, I'm going to pop over and see what it's like over there because I think they've got some silver. And they've been traders going back and forth. So there is a relationship between Britain and Roman Europe and the growth of Roman influence. And so the traders go back and forth.

And so Caesar sends someone out to have a look, but he decides not to get off the boat. And then Caesar goes back and then he goes back again. And nothing really is done. They take a few hostages and do a few hellos. But nothing really happens, even though Caesar claims in Rome that he's on a splendid victory, a marvelous victory, because who's going to check? Oh, it's great. I've got the Britain.

It's so great. But the thing is, Caesar thinks that there's no silver. There's not really much there to go for. He thinks that it all looks a bit like France. It's a bit triangular. It looks a bit like France. They've got a lot of beef. And he will admit that people look quite strong. But they've all got this blue paint on their face and loads of hair. And Cicero decides that British slaves are very rough. Don't know anything about art and literature. So it's not really seen as the most desirable place you want to conquer. You can conquer Egypt. Julius Caesar's far more busy with Egypt in Cleopatra than he is. I can see. Why? And this sort of dodgy, cold place, which has nothing but beef and savage people. And so, Rome really sort of leaves it alone after that. But the problem is it's always going to be a pocket of resistance in Gaul. And people are always going to flee there when they're dodging the Romans. And it's always going to be somewhere that they think they can possibly take.

So various emperors think we're going to go and seize Britain. and they never quite manage it. And then finally, finally, you know, then we have Claudius who finally says, I'm going over. It's time. I'm going over. I'm going over. We're going over there. And he goes over in 43 and really conquers.

He smashes and grabs. And he even apparently takes elephants with him. They take elephants to stun the natives. So he smashes and grabs. And he sets up with this capital of Roman Britain in modern day Colchester. Camelodonam. And that is where he takes tributes from the kings, from the tribal kings at the time. So there are various tribes in various different parts of Britain. And Claudius takes the tributes there. And off he goes back to Rome. He's conquered it. He's got it. And really after that, we see a real spread of Roman influence.

It's not just a bit of trade. It's not just a bit of hello and goodbye. It's actual taxes. It's Roman. oppression and these towns, Colchester in particular, Camelodonum, becomes a place where veterans live, where the veterans are the Roman army. So if you are in the Roman army, you get the prize at the end of some land and a sort of safe place to live. So the veteran set up in Camelodunum and also St. Albans, Verilanium. And there's this great temple built in Camelodunum, temple of Claudius. You can still see the base now. It's gigantic, gigantic. I think it was six stories high and it was I think 3,000 square feet

the base and bars and theatres. So Britain has been taken over and the Ikenny tribe so Budikas tribe they are Norfolk Suffolk

Cambridge they we think are more independent than some of the other tribes because there's fewer Roman coins to be found in the archaeology so it probably means that they had less interaction with the Romans, few kind of of Roman goods, probably because of where they are, probably they just

A little far, a little too far. We can't go out there. No, we can't go to East Anglia. Heaven's above. We can't get on that train from Liverpool Street, no. So, you know, Budica's like, we think that one of the

Ikenny kings probably did go and pay tribute to Claudius at Colchus de Camelodunum, but probably their lives were slightly better than the majority of other British tribes in Roman Britain, we think. And then there's a king

Antidios, who probably was at Colchester. And then Prasuticus comes to the throne and that's Buticus' husband. And she could, we don't know, she could have been a sort of a minor aristocrat from the Ikenny tribe. I think that's probably what she was because of various different groupings.

But she could have come from another tribe. So we don't know anything about her early life or indeed her name. But I think we can guess she's, Bebelling around 60. She can maybe say she's born somewhere around 20. So Roman Britain is what she knows. But what she sees during her lifetime is a rapid acceleration of Roman control.

Rapid acceleration. And what is very significant is a moment in 47 where there's this packs of a Romana, which is that the Britons have got to give up their weapons. And, I mean, this is horrible. The Britons don't want to give up their weapons. This is their right to bear arms and they use them in all kinds of ways so they rebel and the Ikenny rebel. But the Romans put that down pretty hard. And this is, I suppose one of the things we need to remember here is that we have an idea of what Roman women are doing at this time from larger classical history.

What is a woman like Budica doing or the woman we now know as Budicaa, what position does? what position does she hold in this, I suppose, tension-filled society from what you're talking about there, because we have this national Britain identity of the Britons in one sense, but it's very Romanized by now, and we have systems, Roman systems in place, Roman systems of oppression, even you could go into say. Trades, obviously there has been for a very long time, as you say. So what is her status in this marginalized world where there's two cultures starting to bat up against? against each other more and more. And we're going to see that come into full of fruition in just a little bit. But what status does she have as a queen at this moment in time?

I mean, I think it's indubitable that women have more of a free life in Britain and in most of the world that's taken by Rome than they do in the actual Rome itself, that women's lives in Rome are quite circumscribed in terms of going out, in terms of freedom, in terms of money. I think we can see certainly there are quite a few chief testes, queens, female rulers in Roman Britain of the tribes. And it certainly seems as if I think obviously women fulfill the role that we expect them to fulfill in these largely agrarian societies. There's hunter gathering. There's a lot of weaving. But I think as the society has developed, the I can only have a lot of pottery, they have a lot of jewelry, they clearly have a lot of goods and trading goods.

Were women involved in trading? Maybe we don't know. But certainly it seems as if they are, they buy them. Budica has, you know, gold. She has belongings. And I think that her role in the tribe would have been very a dual role, partly sacred. She is the sacred ruler's wife. She is the sacred woman. She has, I think, a role in the tribe would have been very a dual role. partly sacred. She is the sacred ruler's wife. She is the sacred woman. She has, I think, a role in religious rights, but also, I think, administrative and practical. She has those roles of a monarch as well. So although we don't know a lot about the lives of women at the time, and we have to piece it together from the archaeology, I think we can say that there is certainly more overall freedom for women. And we do see some female rulers. And we do see, some reports of female fighters as well. And of course, the Romans find female rulers and female fighters absolute anathema. It's one thing that the Britons have got long hair, wowed on their faces.

And do you know what else? They've got Anthony that's very upsetting to the Romans. What? Moustache is so. Oh, God. How very dare they? Oh, I know. Have a mustache.

Oh, horrible. Horrible, blue faces and moustache. So I think, you know, we always like to crazy look. We always like to unique and crazy look. We might have been a boring little country with no real money and... Loads of cows. Yeah, loads of cows. But yeah, we always had flair.

You at least had a moustache. Yeah, exactly. Now, we're talking about flair. We're talking about appearances. We're going to go to a very quick break. But when we come back, we're going to describe or look into a description about Budica herself. Right, Kate, we were talking about what they looked like, what the Britons looked like. And I have a description here of what Budica apparently looked like.

And I'd love to know what your take on this is. So this is from Cassius Dio, and this is how he describes her. In stature, she was very tall, in appearance most terrifying, in the glance of her eye most fierce, and her voice was harsh. A great mass of the tawnyest hair fell to her hips, if you don't mind. Around her neck was a large golden necklace, and she wore a tunic of diverse colors over which a thick mantle was fastened with a brooch. So have we invented this Amazonian perfect warrior woman here? Or how close to the reality do you think that is, Kate? We can never know, but what do you think?

I mean, what that says to us is riches, because she's wearing colour. She's wearing colour and it's a thick mantle. She's wearing gold. She's wearing colour. She has all this marvellous hair. I mean, we can suggest perhaps that she's done very well on this diet if it was largely beef, a high-protein diet as the influences of Instagram would always. be talking about. So Budica there is clearly of a wealthy woman, a clearly significantly dressed

woman in the equivalent, I think, of royal robes. And we have two sources, two main sources about Budica. We have Tacitus and we have Cassius Dio. And Tacitus was writing about 50 years after her death. And his father-in-law was in England at the time. So he probably either talk to people who saw her or was familiar with her. Cassius Dio is a bit later. He's in 220, so some years later, but stories do get repeated. And there is a lot of agreement between them. They agree on the uprising. They agree that some cities were sacked. They agree that Boudicca was leading it. And Cassius gives us more of the speeches and more of the appearance and Tacitus gives us more of the story. And I think, you know, and after he tells us that she's looking so marvelous

with the hair and with the necklace. He says that she's got a spear that she waves around terrifying people. And I think this is both probably aspects of the truth, but also corresponding to what the Romans want to see as a British woman. And she is looking savage, isn't she? She's waving her spear.

If they wanted to be fed Cleopatra, who was lascivious and gorgeous and dazzling and seductive and all Egypt's riches in the Roman sources, then Budica, yes, she's in. Yes, she's a great queen, but she's also scary with a sphere. And yeah, that hair. I mean, we can't say that she's got a moustache, but she's got all this hair again. Clearly, all this British hair is going all over the place.

It needs to be plastic. She may have a moustache, who knows? They clearly want to put it back in the night and knees bun. And so that image of Boudicca is so iconic, I think. And what she does is she's talking to her troops. And there's this incredible moment, isn't there after it? She's got the spear, waving the spear around. She gives this sensational speech.

about how they've suffered under the Romans. And then she gets this hair. She prays to the goddess Andrasti that we don't hear otherwise. So it might have been a goddess just for the tribe or might have been a wider goddess, some kind of goddess of war. And she's got this hair in her skirts

and a sort of a cloak. And she lets down the cloak and the hair runs out and it runs to the right side. And this is magic. This is magic that Breda has performed. She's done. divination. She's performed this magical ritual by which the hair has gone to the right auspicious side. And that means the Britons are going to win. That means they are going to win under

her. So she is a magical spear-waving, ginger-haired, giant-haired woman. Divinely appointed gold-wearing. Everything. She's got everything, I think, to thrill the Roman reading audience. But I think there probably was a lot of truth in the world. I think there was colour. I think there would have been wonderful weaving. It was freezing in Britain, so she would have been wearing nice, woolly clothes.

And I'm sure that the use of magic and the use of divination and the appeal to goddesses, as well as rousing the troops in terms of the horror that you've suffered, this seems very absolute in the way of what a queen would do to rouse her troops. We don't know what she really said

if she spoke at all, but I think these words are very likely to what she probably would have spoken and she talks about how it was, it's better to die than go about with a price on our heads. We should never have let the Romans here in the first place. We are oppressed. We have to give up everything we own. This level of taxation, the level of oppression is one we must fight back against.

So she is an intimidating figure in both Tacitus and Cassius Dio, but particularly in Cassius. And partly I think Cassius is writing under such one of the most terrible rubbish emperors of all time, Ella Gallupus. And he's so hopeless. He's absolutely awful. And he also steals a Vestal Virgin and forces her to marry him and then later divorces her. So you know, you're not supposed to go anywhere near a man if you're a Vestal Virgin. Yes, he's all over the place. He's total chaos.

So I think there's a message here and the message here not only is showing the Roman people, Oh, look, let's see these crazy Britons, let's squash them. But also, hey guys, this is a savage, savage woman. But she gets very close to beating us. She does. And we're going to get into that tension, that outbreak of essentially battles warfare in just a moment. But you were talking earlier, Kate, about this idea that tension was starting to build. And let's just rewind a little bit and place ourselves back there with the tension that's coming across.

into these communities of the Aikenai or the Aisinae. What is that about? It's about taxation you'd mentioned. It's about, is it about losing their way of life? And then, if you don't mind, there is another turning point within that tension. And that is when Boudicca's husband dies. So just talk us through how those two things link up, the tensions that we have and then the death of the king.

So I think, I mean, you're absolutely right. She talks, these speeches that we have reported are very much on the question of, as you say, taxation, oppression. The Romans demand their money like crazy, don't they? And also losing, as you say, their way of life. She says, you've come to realize how much better would be poverty with no master than wealth with slavery. And have we not been robbed even of our very possessions? And she really makes it clear that we can't coexist. with them anymore. We can't, we shouldn't ever have tried to coexist with them. They take everything

and we are stripped and despoiled like murderers in chains, so she says. And so she really, they aren't being treated as equals. They aren't being treated as even well-treated client people, client monarchs under the Roman Empire. They are being entirely oppressed. They're being screwed. Scrooed. and screwed to get money for the empire. And she's had enough. Is it true to say, and I don't know if this is true, so this is why I'm requiring you to be an expert here, that when the king die, when Budicus' husband dies,

is it true to say that he leaves the kingdom to his family along with the empire? Is that, so he's in a way handing up, I know there was kind of an expectation, I think, there was an expectation to do that, right, to kind of show your leader, okay, we'll play ball, a little bit here. But is that the case? And if so, what's the impact then for Boudicca and her daughters? This is some Tacitus, who I think is probably our more reliable source in particular. He talks about

how Prasuticus, Bouticius husband, he dies and leaves his world, leaves his nation to the Emperor Nero and his two daughters, two daughters who aren't named. We presume there were no sons and they were just two daughters, and that was the descendants of Budica and Prasuticus. And Tacitus says, well, he thought by this act of deference that he might save his kingdom from injury, but the reverse happened. And what happens is that the Romans, this sparks absolute horrors. Now, the main governor, Suetonius, is off beating up my ancestors in Anglesea. So he's off beating up the Welsh, because they're off.

They can't seem to get them under control. And there's another procurator, Cater Stasianus, in charge. And he tells the Roman soldiers to go and punish Budica and the royal family. And it's horrific. Budica is flogged. The daughters are raped. And the rest of the royal family, they lose their possessions. Some of them are arrested.

I mean, this is, I mean, this is horrific. This is totally, I mean, it's, it's indescriable. And so unlike what the Romans generally do. They generally, and they'll do this with another chieftain later Caracticus, who gets taken off to Rome and says, this guy gets taken off to Rome as a hostage, and he gets shown off in the triumph and Cesar Capina. I mean, he says, I don't know why they wanted our little huts when they've got Rome. It's so nice here.

Why did you want our rubbish? I really like that observation. So, you know, generally you take a royal and you show them in a triumph. That's what they wanted to do with Cleopatra. But with these, with the Ikenny, they treat them horrendously. And flogging the queen, the queen consort, the mother and raping the daughters, I mean, this is, I do think that the reason why, I think one of the reasons why, this is one of my theories that we don't name these two daughters in the sources. What are their names? We have no idea.

Is because, not just because perhaps we might say, well, they're politically irrelevant, but I think also because I think also they don't want to humanize them. We don't want to give them names because they've suffered such horrific depredations at the hands of the Roman army because the Romans, like any oppressor, wants to think they're fair. We treat people fairly. If you just do the right thing and agree with us and give us a. over your money will treat you fairly while not happening here. Yeah.

And why do the Romans do this? Now, I have to say I have a slightly different view of proselyticus than some do, because a lot of people see him as sort of a tragic hero. He had this great idea to protect his kingdom, and instead it failed and the worst happened. But I think he made a mistake. He should have fought the Romans at the time. Rather than relying with them, rather than collaborating with them, he should have fought with them at the time. And giving the kingdom, partly to his daughters and partly to the Emperor

Nero, was an invitation to him. He was kicking the can down the road. I'm sure it made him feel better on his deathbed. Yes. But of course the Romans weren't going to respect these women. Of course they weren't. I mean, I think possibly might it have been more of a collaboration if he'd left it to a son? Maybe, maybe. But the Romans don't respect female rule. They don't. They, they, they Queens are immediately squashed. The only way that the only reason why Julia Caesar gives position to Cleopatra particularly is because Cleopatra's brother, who Julius Caesar would naturally more respect, has beheaded Julius Caesar's friend and enemy, friend and rival, so we can't have that. So the queens are not going to be respected. And I think to me, the reason why they are punished in this

horrific way is because they don't want any other Britons getting any ideas. Don't leave. Don't leave your kingdom. Don't leave your kingdom to your daughters. Don't leave it to a daughter. She can't rule. Got to give it to the emperor. You, when you, yes, will allow you to be the king. Sure. As soon as you die, give it to us. Hand it over. That's the way the Romans work. And they come in because they do not respect female rule and they are seized. Cassius writes a lot more about taxation that Seneca, the philosopher, who had lent loads of money to the Britons. Now, I don't, no, Were they the best bet for lending? All these stuff savages with moustaches?

You know, well, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. He wants to recall the money, that they want to recall all their loans. There's a lot about taxation and money. So I think it's that, but I think the horror that's exerted on the royal family is for Budica. At this point, at this point, she's probably been a pretty happy queen consort. Sure.

You know, doing the religious rights, various, you know, waving and smiling. Yeah. You know, doing the kind of queen mother sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then the husband dies and this inheritance changes her position entirely. And of course, this is an episode about Boudicca. So we know she's not going down without a fight.

And we will find out a little bit more about that fight right after this break. So we now have this situation, Kate, where Boudicca and her daughters have been unofficially disinherited, whatever way you want to put it, Rome has very much brutalised them in physical and all other kinds of ways and really exerted its power. Butica's not going to take this. No, she's not going to take this. And that's what the Romans had expected, that they're totally going to crush the spirit of the entire tribe by crushing the royal family.

But she determines to fight. back. And I don't think she'd ever really done any fighting before. I think she'd just been part of this, really, I think she'd just been part of this royal family that it's sort of, you know, smiled and waved at the emperor. She might even have gone to Camelodonum and seen the tributes to Claudius. All of these things, I think she'd been part of Roman Britain, been a sort of client queen in the negotiations that you do. She'd been queen consort. And now she decides to lead a rebellion against the Romans. And she's a woman.

She's not even the queen. She's doing it on behalf of her daughters who probably we can imagine. I mean, we're just guessing here that they were maybe late teenage or early 20s. I mean, because they were unmarried. I think that's the case. They've been sexually assaulted. They were as virgins. And so she's leading it on behalf of her daughters.

So she whips up her tribe who are only to. pleased. I think it's the last draw for them, the combination of the money, the taxation, the last draw for them. But she also manages to gather members of other tribes as well, that she's actually recruiting very, very quick, which suggests that so many people had just been suffering under the Robbins and just waited for almost this figurehead to come up. And they said, well, okay, we'll fight. I think this speaks to what we were talking about, how we opened this conversation, the interaction of women and power. And here we have a very early example of this,

because we're talking about this dissatisfaction that might have been amongst the Native Britons in relation to the Romans coming in, taking over taxation, all the rest of land grabs, etc. The person they choose to coalesce behind is going to have to be powerful, whoever that is, they're going to have to hold some kind of power, even if they're not officially designated queen

or it's not queen regnant or at least it was a consort position or some kind of consort position. But here we have Budica stepping into a power role, a leadership role. And often we see this as an anomaly, but actually what we have

is just the idea that a woman can lead this revolt. And it now goes on to be more than just an idea, right? So she's gathering all this support from the other tribes. Now what is she going? to do in terms of practically taking this fight back to Rome? What is her strategy?

Well, that is such a fascinating question, Anthony, because strategy. I mean, anyone knows that you can't go up against Rome, that they do have an endless supply of fighters. The Roman army will never die. It can be endlessly supplied by other people from across the Roman Empire. You can't fight them. You can't win. Yeah, yeah. But, and you, they will punish you. I mean, they punished. Just look at the way they treated the royal family just for a matter of a will that you think perhaps, you know, perhaps they could have come along and said, well, would you mind just changing that will a bit?

And let's all forget about it. Let's just say the emperor gets the territory and that's that. I would be glad. Yeah, yeah. Thanks very much. Let's just, you know, have a few, you know, pass on the sandwiches. Lovely, lovely. There we are.

But no, they are brutally. punished. So they know you go up against Rome and you're on a suicide mission. But clearly, they feel that they have no other choice. And I think also, you know, when you're one of the Britons, although Boudic is very familiar with life in Roman Britain, I think that she must have, people must have known that it took a long time for the Romans to come to Britain. And it wasn't just because of the very rough seas and the fact that no one could land and, you know, it was very difficult to get in. But I think, you know, they might have had a good guess that really they're not the jewel in the crown of the Roman Empire. I mean, they're really not.

That perhaps maybe the Romans might change their mind. So I wonder whether they have a hint of that. But certainly they feel, and it's clear from the speeches that we get recounted, particularly in Cassius, that they feel that they might as well die. They might as well die. They carry on like this. And so off they set, this gigantic army that Budika gathers. Now, it's hard for us to tell exactly how big the army is because, of course, the Romans exaggerated. Lots of different sources.

Well, there was 10 Roman soldiers against a million Britons. Oh, we're amazing. So we don't really know exactly how big it is. I mean, at one point, they say it's 250,000, which seems, I mean, it's not possible, you know, the overall population of Britain. I know everyone, hey. Sorry, little man in there. You've got to come out. We're all going.

I know you're 80, but you're coming. But what they do, and this is, I mean, this is a huge, is they strike at the heart of Roman Britain. And this is Colchester, Camelodonam, this place that has been, I think it's almost like the shop window for Roman power. That's what it is. With this gigantic temple of Claudius that we mentioned, the biggest building they've ever had in Britain, this gigantic, gigantic temple of Claudius, which is a religious temple. but it's all about our religion, the emperor's religion and Andrasti and all the rest of them, well, they're just hopeless. And it's filled with veterans. A lot of veterans live there.

And it's a two-tier system, really, isn't it? The Britons who live there are often treated as servants and the lowest of the low. So they strike at the heart of Roman Britain. And she heads with her giant army, whether she's got her spear or not. What kind of chariot she's on, she's heading to Colchester, and they absolutely raise it to the ground. I mean, Colchester is brutally treated. The people flee and they hide in the Temple of Claudius, but the Britons go in there, and they grab them and everyone pretty much is killed. Now, you know, I mean, there are lots of points that, you know, Brutica was ruthless and Brutica was brutal and we can't cheer her as a heroine because of what she did here, including the elite women, were killed.

And, I mean, perhaps I'm being too soft on her. But I do think that what you can't negotiate with the Romans at this point. You can't be nice to them. You can't say, OK, chaps, I'll just kill the fighting men and then that's that. You have to hit hard. and this is what she did. And if it is possible, it was possible, we just don't know, that she once upon the time had been there, the emperor was taking his tributes and which I'm sure was a grand and beautiful

and glamorous and golden ceremony, but it was symbolising to the Britons, you're under the thup. What a moment it was. So she seizes Colchester, and I don't think, I mean, everyone's taken by surprise. No one thought that.

What has she done? No one thought that this lady in her colourful outfit waving her sphere. with a ginger hair. With their lovely hair. And, you know, Vamsackle, a lot of people behind her who haven't probably fought for a long time, that they've taken the heart of Roman Britain.

And Suetonius, who is busy trying to beat up the Welsh, thinks, oh, I better head back. I better head back. And so he starts to move back. But really, Roman Britain is quite unprotected. So she's done Colchester. Yeah. Now she heads to London. And one of the things to bear in mind, I suppose, is that we have this.

And you've built this up really well, okay, but it's worth repeating, I suppose, that the Roman system of military defense or kind of proactive pursuit is very organized. It's very systematic. It's, we have a hierarchy here. Different people do different things in order to achieve the one outcome. But what we think we know about the Britain's form of aggressive military action is that it's a bit smash and grab. It's total chaos. It's like, let's just go for it and see what happens. We're just agents of chaos. And that's actually what the Romans find quite shocking when they first come to Britain because they do expect quite organized fighting. And the Britain's just get in their chariots and whizz around. Like something from wacky racers going, oh, we're going here, we're going there.

We're just going to break the lines. They're just all over the place and looking so intimidating. So, yes, I can't say that Budica's force were a disciplined, organized fighting force in the way that the rest. the Roman military would be. And we can see a lot of, you know, similarities between the Roman military and the modern military. It's very hierarchical. It's very organized.

Like you said, everyone knows what they're doing. Boudicke's troops are much more disorganized, but they are filled with passion. And they are determined. And they are totally led by her. And of course, when she has this great victory in Colchester, everyone suddenly joins in. Because of those with the, you're not going to get very far. You know, okay, love, you know. Give us a call after you've been beaten.

Now. Now it's different. And so then off she goes to London. And London is a much smaller location. It's not as big as it's not the capital that it is now. That's Colchester. But it is a very important trading spot. It's very important for trading.

It's bustling with trade and shopping and trade. So if she's struck at the heart of the Roman commercial empire if she's struck at the heart at the Roman sort of religious and administrative center in Colchester, now it's not exactly the commercial heart, but it's getting there. And really, Suetonius can't do anything about it. He can't do anything about it, can't protect it. He says, well, you know, evacuate chaps, but still she goes in there and pretty much burns it to the ground. So that's two significant Roman cities that you've done for.

I mean, it's a bit nice of us, really, in London. So there's a statue to Budica in London. Yes. I think it's quite interesting, isn't it, having a statue to someone who actually wrecked the place. Reck the place, came in there with her. Yes, I think so you're saying the wrecking ball. And then she heads on to St. Albans, Varelian, another great Roman city filled with veterans.

And they are, again, you know, Suetonius again, he comes, but can't really get the chaps together. So he says, okay, just evacuate. Poor old St. Albans. to evacuate. And again, it's totally beaten. So that's three major Roman cities that Budica and her slightly raggle-taggle army, farmers who have left their crops and various people who have not really been fighting. It's not like they've been training to fight over the years because they've been under Roman oppression. I think we don't know for sure, but I think we can probably imagine that lots of them hadn't been fighting.

They hadn't been fighting the other tribes. It had been peaceful, but perhaps, you know, too peaceful that they enjoyed a quite fattening, fattening peaceful life. And here they are battering down. And, you know, if you, the whole point of getting people to suffer as they do in the Roman army is that you will see this promised land of the veteran. You will have this present and you'll live safely and you can get married. You know, I love a big fan of Vindalanda. It's such an amazing place, isn't it? And so interesting to me that in Vindalanda,

a lot of the shops and the taverns around the area were run by veterans. So after they leave the army, they run a pub serving the soldiers. And I'm probably thinking, well, when I was in Syria. Oh, yes, having a great time. So interesting. And so she's really striking at the heart of Rome. and the emperor hears about this and thinks, maybe this weird, faraway place is not worth the effort.

Perhaps we should just withdraw. He thinks about it. And so at this point we have this iconic person that we have all kind of heard about to some extent in whatever fashion. She's battling through. She's moving, well, it's hard to tell, but it seems that she's moving quite rapidly.

The group of them are moving between. Also, by the way, I love this idea that they're a Colchester and St. Alden's like, They're just so tweed now in some ways that it's like, wow, no, these are battlefronts at this particular moment's time. The Walls of the Roses as well, doesn't it? Paul, St. Albans, is always suffering in the Walls of the Roses. And now we just go for a Sunday afternoon.

Of course, St. Albans. They finally get everything sorted after Boudicca's raised the place and then the Wars of the Roses comes. Level the whole thing again. But of course, this is Budica. We know that there is a kind of a martyr status that is attached to her in terms of British identity. So we've had these three wins, these significant three wins, but we then get to the Battle of Watling Street.

And this is where things come on done, isn't it? So Budaqa, we don't know exactly where this battle took place. Now, there's a thought that it's in Mancetta, in the Midlands, Warwickshire, which is on this road. And I think there's very possible it could be there. But it's Duncan Mackay, who's in a very interesting book about Budica. he suggests it's actually not too far from St. Albans that she isn't really allowed to progress very far from St Albans by Suetonius,

that the Hems are in close to there as opposed to her heading up towards the Midlands, perhaps to try and find him. And I think that there's a very interesting point there. So we don't know exactly where it is, but it's somewhere around this area, St. Albans to the Midlands. And what Suetonius does

is he's really analyzed the enemy. He's analyzed Budikos. So he takes up this position with a wood behind him so that he can't be captured from the back. So he's got this position with the wood behind him. And Boutica's sort of trap. And so the way that the Britons normally work is by using their chariots and causing chaos doesn't really come off in the same way now that we've got Soutonius with this disciplined Roman army coming towards them. And I think that Boudicca's great quality is also perhaps her great failing. And I think so it's often like that in life that, you know, perhaps what is most wonderful about you can also be what's worse about you.

And in that respect, what is so significant about Boudicca, what she is incredible at is recruiting. She has recruited significantly, I mean, we don't think 250,000, but she's recruited a lot of people from different tribes. they are all banding behind her. But this is also a weakness because it's not like she's recruited, as we said, nonstop amount of young, tough, trained men. She has all kinds of people who want to help. She's got women there. She's got children there. Older people. Everyone wants to help and everyone wants to be part of Bidica's victorious procession. They all want to be part of it. So when the Romans come and sort of advance on them, it means that really they can't go back because they've got the wagons behind them and they've got old people and they've got children and they've got women behind them and they've got animals. So they're almost stymied by their own weight, by their own makeup.

And the Romans are merciless. They even kill the animals. They kill the cows. So these, I mean, I know that they've got a lot of cows in Britain. They've got spread cows. But they kill the cows. Everyone is killed. There's no mercy exercise.

they are going to slaughter and they're going to slaughter because they are sending a message to the Britain but also to the rest of Gaul to anyone who might be hearing about this sort of shocking uprising you will all die. Yeah, like this.

Like this. Brutely and you know, it's one of those things because and this is how Budica end, this is the end of her story and history. But it does continue, doesn't it? more than so many people, she endures in the British imagination in such an acute way. And I was reading in preparation for this as well that the people want to find where she might be buried.

And there's, you know, theories about under car parks or a different cathedral. Under what? Because Richard was under an R, wasn't it? We must find a car park with a giant bee. I was like, what's a giant B? No, I get it. I get it. Oh, yes.

Not the insert. thought. Who knows? But, well, you know, and see, this is the thing. We don't know. And there's a lot. And we hinted at this in the beginning that there's myth around all of this. And I've even heard some historians say that, yes, there was a Budika-like figure, but we don't

even definitely know who she was, what she was entirely. And then other historians, of course, go, well, actually, there's an awful lot of fact in some of these sources. But what I want to ask you, Kate, in relation to Regina, the new book, is. what do you think, and it's a good place to finish, I think, with this conversation because we'll take something from us. What do you think Budica can tell us about queenship specifically and more generally about women and power? What is the message she is giving us now in 2026 about that relationship? As you say, we don't know what the truth is behind these sources.

There have been historians who've doubted she even existed. Certainly the uprising happened. was it led by her or not. I think that, I mean, to me, I think that the Romans don't really like giving credit if they don't have to. So there must have been some kind of woman leading the troops. Because the message that the writers are giving to the Romans is, look, you're being led by a woman. I mean, honestly, they make that clear that she's not, you know, the Romans need to step it up. The Romans need to get more disciplined if this is what's going to happen, that this woman can create a rag on. Tagal army and trundle around across various important parts of Roman Britain. And so I think

she really did exist. One of my favourites is a 16th century theorist who thought she was buried at Stonehenge and Stonehenge is Budikas. I've heard this too. Budigas grave. I love that. I love that theory. Yes, we don't know where her body is. I mean, either we're told that either she poisoned herself on the battlefield or she got sick and died. If she hadn't died, people would have continued fighting. So we don't know where she is. And I doubt that if the Romans got anywhere near her, they would have given her a good burial. Hopefully the Britons managed to give her a reasonable burial. Who knows? Who knows? We don't know where she's buried. We have no idea. And she does live on in the afterlife.

We have statues. She becomes a banner in votes for women. There's a Budica banner with a wagon wheel. She is. And then becomes a symbol of empire for the Victorian. Ironically, someone who was fighting back against the empire becomes a symbol of great empire for the Victorians. Then I think she probably would have supported votes for women. So I think all power to the suffragettes. We can lend her to that. We can lend her to that. But I think that her mission was impossible.

She knew she could never win. So did everyone else behind her. But she did improve the lives of her people and all of Britain. Suetonius was recalled another governor was put in who was told to be better. and much fairer. And I think she did stop particularly bad treatment happening, but also I think that she ensure that that would never happen to a queen and her daughters again, that if a woman was ever taken prisoner, an elite woman was ever taken prisoner, she would be treated well. She would not be sexually assaulted. She would not be flogged. So she did, I think, protect both the Britons and also

So, queenship. And then I think in terms of queenship, I think, it reminds us that you don't have to be a queen regnant to change the course of history. We often undervalue the contribution of the queen consort. But I think when we do have queen regnance, behind them is a great queen consort, whether it's amblin behind Elizabeth and Elizabeth's other stepmothers, whether it's Sheptsut's mother was a very powerful queen consort, you know, wife of the king. So I think that she does prove that the queen consort can battle back just as much as the queen regnant.

And certainly, I think she really does terrify Rome. She puts the wind up Rome. And this is a woman with her spear and her hair and a raggle-toggle army. And yet they almost, almost managed to get victory over Rome. There's a message in that about ignoring those women on the. on the margins of society. I love that idea that you're telling us to not ignore the queen consorts that are standing a little bit further back perhaps, but actually look what's going on there. How is that influence happening? How does that influence take shape? And if you want to learn a little

bit more about that and queenship throughout the ages, we have Kate's new book, which is out now, Regina, a new history of women and power. It's a brilliant read, as I said, at the top. And I'm not just saying that. I mean, it's so, so compelling. Go read it. You'll learn new things. about how that power overlaps with womanhood and with feminine rule. It's a great, great book. Go and read that now. Kate, where can people find you on social media if they're looking to learn a little bit more? Oh, I'm on Instagram and threads and TikTok and I'm Kate Williams, M.

And you may see her on CNN every down again. Very fancy little royal correspondent on there too. When they find Boudicca under the car park, I'm covering it. You'll be on. Under the Giant Bee. You and Wolf, that's going to be what it is. She has a news for us. And I am at Anthony Delaney History.

Thank you so much for watching After Dark. If you're not watching us, did you know that we're on YouTube now as well? So you can listen and watch and have us in the background as you're doing your bits and pieces. If you have any ideas, because a lot of you are reaching out to say, look, I have an idea for After Dark. How do I get in touch? It's After Dark at HistoryHit.com. That's AfterDark at HistoryHit.com. And until next time, I'll be listening.