KeyFacts: Queen of the Iceni Died: AD 61 KeyWords: Boudicca Boadicea Queen of the Iceni Norfolk Boudiccan Rebellion Roman Invasion Client King Prastutagus Colchester London St. Albans Tacitus Suetonius Paulinus

Boudicca (pronounced "Boo-di-ca," sometimes also spelled Boadicea) was Queen of the Iceni, a people who lived in the present-day counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. She led a rebellion against the Roman authorities as a result of their mistreatment of her family and people after the death of her husband, Prasutagus, who may have been a Roman client-ruler, in AD 60.

Boudicca, assisted by other disaffected tribes, sacked the cities of Colchester, St. Albans and London and, it is estimated, massacred approximately 70,000 Roman soldiers and civilians in the course of the glorious, but ill-fated rebellion.

The rebels were finally defeated in battle by a force led by the Roman governor of Britain, Suetonius Paulinus, after which Boudicca took her own life by ingesting poison. A memorial statue (in photo above) by Hamo Thorneycroft of Boudicca, riding in her war chariot, stands alongside the Thames River in London, in the shadow of Big Ben.

Boudicca's Rebellion: Read the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus' account. . .Click Here