Boudicca – Her Place in History and the Fortunes of Her Tribe

By Mark Cochrane

This book, through extensive research and analysis, endeavours to reveal what actually happened when in 60 AD Boudicca was elected to lead the united British tribes in their war against Roman rule. Despite the brutal punishment she had suffered at the hands of the Roman officials, Boudicca recovered to command a brilliantly effective military campaign against the pre-eminent super power of the ancient world.

This is the story of the momentous events that culminated in the great British uprising against the Roman occupiers and their army, and challenges the credibility of the traditional ‘histories’ of Boudicca. So, while it is about Boudicca, her life and achievements, it also seeks to follow the fate of her tribal people – the Iceni. In the aftermath of the war, many migrated through Ireland to the Scottish Highlands.

Regardless of a short lived ‘golden age’, the descendants of the Iceni have suffered a succession of ethnic cleansings over 2000 years through war, famine, migration, plague, forced emigration and invading armies. Today the remnants – represented by the McEachrans, Cochrans and the many variants of these names – are scattered throughout the world and have lost the identity of their origins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Aug 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398415041

Mark Cochrane

Mark Cochrane was born in Australia but has resided in New Zealand since 1949 except for twelve years working in Australia. He lives in the Far North with his partner of thirty years, Diane, and their Fox Terrier, Fuji. Mark has worked in many fields as a merchant seaman, motor mechanic, printer and building and construction worker. Extensive involvement with community-based and Scottish heritage organisations has proved invaluable for Mark to gain skills in writing and research, and to pursue his overriding interest in ancient history and his Scottish origins. It was these combined with interests and research into ancestry that resulted in this book, a decade-long project.

Book preview

Boudicca – Her Place in

History and the Fortunes

of Her Tribe

Mark Cochrane

Austin Macauley Publishers

Boudicca – Her Place in

History and the Fortunes

of Her Tribe

About the Author

Dedication

Copyright Information ©

Acknowledgement

Preface

Introduction

The Celtic Tribes of Pre-Roman Britain

The Roman Army

The Druids

Profile of Boudicca

Boudicca and the Claudius Invasion

Boudicca and the Iceni Under Roman Rule

Roman Troop Dispositions

Prelude to the Mobilisation and Offensive of the British Tribes

Political and Economic Development of Pre-60 AD Roman Britain

Agrippina and the Cult of Claudius

The Temple to the Deified Claudius

The Brigantes – (Cartimandua and Venutius)

Catus and Seneca Call in All Grants and Loans

The Death of Prasutagus and Questions About His Will

Protest, Defiance and Guerilla War

Boudicca’s Army Takes Control of the Countryside

The Defeat of the Ninth Division

The Battle for Camulodunum

The Battle for Verulamium and Londinium

The Pursuit of Suetonius and His Escape from Encirclement

The Death of Boudicca and British Casualties; Yet the War Continued

The Roman Offensive – British Resistance – and Military Stalemate

Truce, Mutinous Troops, Famine, and Depopulation

Ireland – the Gateway to Freedom

Appendix 1

Appendix 2: Miscellaneous

Bibliography

About the Author

Mark Cochrane was born in Australia but has resided in New Zealand since 1949 except for twelve years working in Australia. He lives in the Far North with his partner of thirty years, Diane, and their Fox Terrier, Fuji. Mark has worked in many fields as a merchant seaman, motor mechanic, printer and building and construction worker.

Extensive involvement with community-based and Scottish heritage organisations has proved invaluable for Mark to gain skills in writing and research, and to pursue his overriding interest in ancient history and his Scottish origins. It was these combined with interests and research into ancestry that resulted in this book, a decade-long project.

Dedication

Dedicated to all those descended from Boudicca’s tribe, now scattered around the world and unaware of their origins.

Copyright Information ©

Mark Cochrane 2022

The right of Mark Cochrane to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398407770 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398415034 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398415041 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

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Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

Thanks to Gary Watson, who first took an interest in my work, assisted with proofreading and introduced me to other advisors.

I am indebted to Jim Frood for his invaluable help with completing and formatting the manuscript, and introductions for promotion and review of my work.

Special thanks are due to Jeremy Armstrong (Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History at Auckland University) for reviewing the manuscript. I really enjoyed our debate over subjects arising from his overview. Some changes to the manuscript have been made as a result.

Preface

For almost five hundred years – since the advisors of Elizabeth the First promoted her as a latter day Boudicca – the name and image of Boudicca as the heroic ‘Warrior Queen’ has been cynically grafted onto the propaganda and ideology of English expansion and empire. This version of the ‘Boudicca story’ has become so engrained in English literature, and so entwined with the promotion of the British Empire, that the propaganda is accepted as credible history. Thus, this basic ‘history’ is now unquestioned and taken as read, while almost every work on the subject is constrained by the boundaries of certain unvarying and not necessarily accurate assumptions:

That the Roman administration of AD 60 Britain was a legitimate government, when in fact it was the naked rule of a rapacious, oppressive invader.

That any military actions against the Romans in Britain, and especially the great uprising of AD 60 led by Boudicca, were ‘rebellions’ by ‘rebels’ against a legitimate, constituted authority. In reality, the armed resistance of Caratacus and the uprising, led by Boudicca, were military actions legally and morally justifiable as acts of patriotism against an oppressive invader bent on enslavement and theft.

That the Roman Empire was a morally superior social order bringing ‘civilisation’ – which the propagandists see as a ‘good’ thing – to these distant barbarians (Webster).

That Boudicca’s army was comprised of ‘half naked savages’ with no discipline and inferior weapons – or indeed no weapons at all bar farm hoes and the like – engaged in a futile (if heroic) ‘rebellion’ against ‘superior, invincible, formidably armed, disciplined, professional Roman legions’. The reality was rather different both sides were reasonably even in military capability.

Within this matrix is formulated the greater number of studies about Boudicca. As a result, even those writers nominally sympathetic to Boudicca and her cause are unable to be fully objective, and thus come little closer to presenting what actually happened than the propagandists themselves.

Introduction

The ‘Iceni’ have an indelible place in British history because they were the Celtic tribe that played the leading role in the great first-century uprising against Roman rule in Britain. With so much written over so many centuries about Boudicca of the ‘Iceni’ leading the British tribes in their war against the Roman legions, it should have been a straightforward matter to trace the fortunes of this tribe and the circumstances whereby some of them settled in the Scottish Highlands during the first century AD. Logically, or so it seemed initially, the trail of this migration could be uncovered by studying the history of the ‘Iceni’ led war against Rome. After all, every child growing up under the auspices of the British Empire knew the story of Boudicca (Boadicea), the ‘Iceni’ ‘Warrior Queen’, – didn’t they? There seemed to be no doubt about the basic history of Boudicca’s heroic but (supposedly) futile challenge to the ‘invincible’ might of the Roman legions. However, close examination of the original source material (the writings of Tacitus and Dio Cassius) concerning this first-century war exposed much that has been subsequently taught as history on the subject to be ideologically motivated propaganda. Many who have written about Boudicca over the past several hundred years have been motivated to harness her image for, or against, one cause or another, such as, for example, the promotion or suppression of women’s rights. Yet underlying this surface motivation is a general propaganda theme promoting the imagined divine right of the Roman Empire to invade any country and enslave anybody they chose. Of course, the Romans – so the rationalisation goes – were doing their great historic task of bringing civilisation to ‘unsophisticated’, ‘primitive’, ‘natives’, such as the British Celts; forcibly if they wouldn’t accept it otherwise. This theme of ‘historic right’ is often, by extension, applied to the British Empire, and ‘histories’ featuring Boudicca have been utilised as a convenient vehicle to promote ‘empire and glory’. It is no different with Donald Dudley and Graham Webster’s treatment of the subject in their books, ‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’; and Webster’s singular – sixteen years later – follow up publication, ‘Boudica’.

It would appear the post war rise of nationalist movements in the British colonies, and the coinciding of the nineteen hundredth anniversary of Boudicca’s liberation war, was the inspiration for Dudley and Webster to co-author ‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’. The two authors apparently believed the policies Rome applied to their British province in the wake of the AD 60 uprising may have provided lessons for dealing with the restless colonies of the twentieth-century British Empire. However, Graham Webster’s book, ‘Boudica’ – following some sixteen years later – seems to have been more about presenting an even greater pro-Roman anti Celtic interpretation than new archaeological evidence as he claimed. One example of this is Webster’s scaling down the estimated casualties suffered by the Roman Army’s Ninth Division. In the ‘Rebellion of Boudicca’, this was given as a realistic 5,000 to 6,000 whereas Webster in his book, ‘Boudica’, has reduced these casualties to 2000. Webster’s revision was not due to any concrete new evidence but rather as part of his biased attempt to portray Boudicca’s army as an ineffectual, uncontrollable rabble. On the positive side, however, both these books (the earlier co-authored publication in particular) added much useful information and interesting material to what had previously been known about both Ancient Britain and the events surrounding the great uprising of AD 60.

Some of the archaeological evidence Dudley and Webster present in ‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’, particularly concerning the sacking of the three cities, provides a window on those times and helps corroborate the ancient historians. Discovering the location of forts and military encampments helps build a picture, but with some exceptions, not much is conclusive. Trying to determine AD 60 troop movements from such information is fraught with the danger of biased interpretation. However, when the authors describe the reconstruction – from fragments – of a British war chariot, they are once again confirming the accuracy of the ancient writers. Furthermore, Dudley and Webster are more objective than some other historians are when commenting on the Temple to Claudius. In particular, they acknowledge that the imposition of the temple was both a provocation and great financial burden on the British tribes. However, on the question of Celtic warfare only Donald Dudley, in contrast to Graham Webster, recognised the military effectiveness of Celtic tribal confederations against Roman armies. So there are positives in Dudley and Webster’s treatment of the Boudicca story, however, due to the extreme bias of the authors towards the mantra of superior Romans trying to ‘civilise’ the ungrateful, ‘unsophisticated’ British ‘natives’ any claim to objectivity cannot be sustained. Perhaps the proclivity of both these authors towards the ideology of ‘superior’ Romans, ‘primitive’ Celts prevented them from understanding, or wanting to understand, the nature of Celtic tribal society and its stark contrast to the Roman imposed system. When coming from such a prejudiced and biased standpoint neither Dudley nor Webster were able to give an objective analysis of the events of AD 60. Nevertheless, both their books are something of a reference source on Boudicca and the British war against Roman rule thus it is necessary to look more closely at what they wrote.

A number of weaknesses, contradictions, and implausible assertions undermine Dudley and Webster’s depiction (through the pages of ‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’ and ‘Boudica’ respectively) of this first-century war. In summary these are:

The assertion and or implication that a minority aristocracy rather than the tribal system based on consanguinity governed the pre-Roman British tribes.

Webster overplaying the superiority of the Roman Army while downplaying the effectiveness of Celtic warfare.

Both authors vehement ideological antipathy to the Druids – a priesthood they bracket with the Jews in a manner bordering on Anti-Semitic.

The untenable reasoning Dudley and Webster employ in trying to determine the disposition of Roman troops prior to and during the war.

The contradictory interpretation of how the British tribes mobilised in the initial stages of their offensive.

The contentious issue of what happened in and around Verulamium and Londinium.

The unsustainable position, strategy, tactics, and options they ascribe to Suetonius and his actions before and after his fleeing Londinium.

The hopelessly illogical and sometimes silly description they give of the so-called ‘final battle’ between Boudicca’s army and the Roman Legions.

The Celtic Tribes of Pre-Roman Britain

The pre-Roman British Celtic tribes were associations of families and clans organised around their relationship to an elected chief and tribally to the high chief or king. Private ownership or individual title of land was a foreign concept to the people of these tribes who shared a unity of culture and belief even if mortal enemies. The essential elements of the Celtic tribal system continued to have expression through the clans of the Scottish Highlands and parts of the Lowlands right into the eighteenth century. Robert Bain in his book ‘The Clans and Tartans of Scotland’ (pp. 47–48) described the clan system this way, It was an ideal system in so far as it recognized that the land, the basis of life, was not an individual possession, but belonged to the people in common, and that each clansman was in duty bound to assist other members of the clan in time of necessity of any kind, irrespective of rank. The system of land ownership was a fundamental difference between the Celtic and Roman organisation of society. Dudley and Webster label the social order Roman rule imposed on Britain as ‘capitalism’. Thus, the accumulation of wealth in private hands would best describe it. Fundamental to the Roman system of land ownership were large privately owned landed estates worked by chattel slaves. In newly acquired provinces such as Britain, the emperor assigned tribal land seized by the Romans to favoured individuals who then became large landowners. Ironically, the slaves working these estates could easily have been the dispossessed who formally owned the land collectively. The contrast between the collective ownership of the land and its shared usage within Celtic tribal society, and the individual ownership, enslavement, theft and corruption of the Roman patronage system marks the two systems as fundamentally different from each other as it is possible to get.

A modern era example of how the collective and private systems of land ownership differ still exists in New Zealand. Although isolated and lacking contact with other countries, the pre-European New Zealand Maori tribal system based on the whanau (family), hapu (clan), and iwi (tribe) was in many essential ways similar to that of the pre-Roman British Celts. In the one hundred and sixty-nine years since the establishment of British colonial rule, a hybrid system developed whereby the commonly owned Maori land – in a multiple title format – continues to exist alongside that which is privately owned – European title – land. To prove their connection with land under Maori title, the claimants need to establish – through the Maori Land Court – their whakapapa (genealogy) back to an original ancestor from the hapu (clan) who collectively held the land under the tribal system. Nor can the owners sell the land without first – through the Maori Land Court – agreeing to convert all or part of it to European title. Thus, in a modern context, can be seen something of the differences between the pre-Roman collectivist lifestyle of the British tribal Celts and the alien system they faced with the imposition of Roman rule following the AD 43 invasion.

However, apart from the relationship to their tribal lands, there were many other stark contrasts between Celtic society and that of the Romans. The full involvement of women in all matters affecting the tribes, including leadership and even combat warrior roles, graphically distinguished the position of British women from that of their Roman counterparts who were subservient to father or husband and only had influence by means of shadowy intrigues. Another matter that set British Celtic society apart from the Roman was the question of slavery. Certainly, slavery was integral to Celtic society, as it has been to virtually all societies from earliest times to the present day but was generally not destructive of the social order. The slave-based system imposed by the Romans wherever they went, on the other hand, ripped the heart out of the democratic collectivist Celtic tribal system and replaced it with a corrupted, favoured minority who ruled by theft, intimidation, and enslavement. Nonetheless, life for the people of pre-Roman Britain was by no means perfect. There were periodic migrations of other Celtic tribes from the continent, which led to clashes and even open warfare with the established peoples, captives of war were utilised for their labour, and, at various times, tribes in the ascendancy dominated and subjugated others only to be themselves subdued or at least have their expansion curtailed. This ongoing inter-tribal conflict was only to be expected when agrarian peoples were competing for arable land. Moreover, the Celts had a reputation as tribes variously described as ‘fierce’, ‘warlike’, and having a ‘love of warfare’. Such descriptions of the Celts, including the British tribes, was largely Roman propaganda that is perpetuated even today by those historians who can’t separate Roman hyperbole from sober comment. Virtually, all ancient tribes and peoples could have been described as ‘warlike’ and ‘warriors’ none more so than the Romans themselves. Nonetheless, the British Celts were certainly a warrior people whose tribes, when united as a military confederation, were an effective fighting force – but all was not as it might seem to be on the surface. A rough balance tended to be maintained between the tribes, and often the warring parties would resolve the issue by selected ‘champions’ from each war band fighting it out in single combat. The moderating, regulating, and unifying force maintaining this balance between the tribes was the powerful influence of the Druids, Celtic priests, who had an authority beyond tribal boundaries.

The Romans, however (in the period before AD 43), were busily muddying the waters of British inter-tribal relations by manipulating trade and creating discord through pro-Roman agents within the tribes. Dubious ‘treaties’ were signed with disaffected individuals claiming to be ‘kings’ such as Verica of the Atrebates, whose appeals to Claudius Graham Webster (‘Boudica’ p. 53) labelled, a cast-iron justification for a Roman invasion. With sentiments such as these, it is no surprise that Webster, being a keen supporter of Roman invasions, in the same paragraph finds something sinister in the possibility that the Druids organised, a strong anti-Roman force that found ready ears and hearts in the young princes; especially Caratacus. (‘Boudica’ – p. 53). Nevertheless, slavery as an issue before the Roman invasion, compared to what it was to become in the aftermath, was of a relatively minor nature. This was because the vast majority of Britons identified with their tribe by blood or marriage. A lesser number were outsiders given protection by the tribe, still others were the ‘un-free’ who, although required to do manual labour, at least had the comfort of being in an environment that was not alien to them and among people of the same culture and language. Besides this, those captured by a rival Celtic tribe had at least a realistic possibility of finding a way back to their own kinfolk in contrast to the hopeless situation facing those sold into slavery within the Roman Empire. And the scale of slavery as an institution under Roman rule was enormous. Edward Gibbon (‘DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE’ – abridged – p. 24) estimated the number of slaves in the empire at the time of Claudius to be sixty million in a total population of one hundred and twenty million. Thus, for the majority of British Celts, the AD 43 invasion, and the subsequent imposition of Roman rule, catastrophically and permanently altered their lives for the worst.

The extension of Romanisation and increasing taxation burdens confronted the ordinary people as did the indignity of seeing their sons conscripted into the Roman army. The relative freedom and democracy of the Celtic tribal way of life had now been replaced – for most ordinary people – by an autocratic slave-based system, designed to sustain a grossly over-privileged minority elite. Nonetheless, despite the documented oppression of the majority Celtic population of Roman Britain, Graham Webster makes the following assertion, The Revolt had brought all the native hostility to the surface, and few of its leaders are likely to have survived. For the great mass of peasants, it was probably never more than an exchange of one set of masters for another. (‘Boudica’ p. 129). Quite possibly, this short-sighted observation by Webster grew out of the earlier passages in ‘Boudica’ when, referring to the so-called ‘Marnian invasions’ of third and second century BC Britain, he states, that a warrior aristocracy had established itself over a peasant population of earlier stock, as must have been happening all over the country at this time. Webster also believed these ‘Marnians’ might even have provided the Iceni with its aristocracy and in particular the ruling dynasty. (‘Boudica’ pp. 5–6).

Regardless of whether a Celtic tribe from the continent invaded the territory of a British tribe, such as the Iceni, and imposed the rule of a ‘warrior aristocracy’ over them, this would not represent a trauma anything like the people Webster likes to call ‘peasants’ would have suffered under Roman rule. For the Iceni (or any other British tribe) would share the same language, tribal culture, and many traditions and beliefs of the new comers and they would be brought together by the unifying, moderating influence of the Bardi (poets and genealogists) or Vates (priests or Druids). Furthermore, over the one or two centuries involved, the bloodlines between the ‘invaders’ and the original people of the tribe would merge, unifying the tribe through consanguinity and other Celtic practices; such as fostering.

The structure and dynamics of the Celtic tribe is described rather well by Iain Zaczec in his book ‘Sacred Celtic Places’ (p. 7), Unlike the feudal system, where land was parcelled out with great precision, the Celtic tribes held much of their land in common. At root their society was bound together by family ties. In Ireland the main territorial unit was the tuath (‘tribe’ or ‘people’), which was large enough to produce a force of anything between 500 and 3000 warriors. Within each tuath, the practice of fostering children out was used extensively, to create closer bonds between individual families. In Scotland, the clan system operated along similar lines. By organising themselves around the extended family, the Celts achieved great personal loyalty and considerable social cohesion at a personal level. Iain Zaczec goes on to say that beyond the intra-tribal level, the Celtic system had ‘major disadvantages’, making the tribes vulnerable to enemies because of inter-tribal feuding and disunity (he also is one of the few authors to point out that because of this, the term ‘king’ may be misleading in a Celtic context).

Just the same, whenever they focus on Celtic history, writers and historians have tended to overstate the assumption there was endemic disunity between Celtic tribes. Part of the reason for this has been due to the heavy emphasis given to Celtic disunity by classical writers – such as Tacitus – who are the main reference source for histories about the Celts. However, anyone using Roman writers as source material should have no difficulty realising that a central policy of the Roman Empire was to generate disunity among the tribes, both to facilitate invasion of their territories and as a strategy to counter the effectiveness of Celtic warfare. Tacitus is being disingenuous with his claims of Celtic disunity, Our greatest advantage in coping with tribes so powerful is that they do not act in concert. Seldom is it that two or three states meet together to ward off a common danger. Thus, while they fight singly, all are conquered. (Agricola 12). Tacitus was engaging in propaganda, but to a modern historian, the holes in what he said here should be obvious. The British tribes united to fight Julius Caesar’s abortive invasion attempt, Vercingetorix rallied the Gauls to rise up against the Roman invaders, the Caledonians formed a confederation to confront the aggression of Agricola and the tribes of Ireland were just too strong for the Romans to attempt an invasion of the Emerald Isle. Furthermore, and even more relevant, the tribes of eastern, central, southern and south-western Britain mobilised under the leadership of Boudicca in an uprising Tacitus described as ‘universal’. While, on the other hand, Roman ‘unity’ during the reign of many emperors amounted to no more than one faction’s standing army imposing a reign of terror over all others. The natural tendency of Celtic tribes towards feuding and inter-tribal warfare was moderated to some extent by the influence of the extra-tribal confederation of Druids, which in times of great crisis could, and often did, inspire widespread unity in the face of a common foe. It is this unifying role of the Druids that Dudley and Webster unconsciously confirm, by labelling their leadership against Roman imperialism as ‘sinister’ and ‘seditious’.

As mention has been made of the Druids, it may not be out of place here to quote Webster’s outrageous calumny that the Druidic priesthood formed a special class in Celtic society recruited from the landowning nobility immediately below the ruling tribal families. (‘Boudica’ p. 64). That there was no ‘landowning nobility’ in the sense of privately owned landed estates concerns Webster not at all for, because of his and Dudley’s extreme antagonism towards the Druids (and the Jews for some reason), propaganda rather than sober historical assessment seems to have been driving him on this issue. What Dudley and Webster have to say about the Druids will be considered more closely in a later chapter.

The Roman Army

Graham Webster writes, The Roman Army in Britain in the middle of the first century was a formidable force of well-equipped and disciplined men. (‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’ p. 22). This is an accurate enough assessment, with the possible exception of the question of discipline (which will be considered a little later). That the armies of the empire were well equipped, professional, and (usually) effective fighting formations is not at issue here, the key question is Webster’s contention that The legionaries were the heavily armoured foot soldiers whose equipment, organisation, and discipline made them superior to their barbarian foes. And the ‘barbarians’ [read here Celts] had no defence against such an iron machine, superbly disciplined and controlled. Only by their very numbers, or by obstinacy in defeat, could they slow down or even stop the legions. (‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’ pp. 22–23).Graham Webster is not the only historian to ascribe exaggerated claims of invincibility to the Roman legions. However, the implausible scenario both he and Dudley concoct around the so-called ‘final battle’ compels Webster to overstate the capabilities of the legions while, conversely, to achieve any measure of credibility, he must also downplay the military effectiveness of Celtic formations. In attempting to create a context that suits his vision of an improbable battle scene, Webster is at variance – and contradictions are common throughout both books – with the next chapter. Writing under the heading ‘Background to Rebellion’, Donald Dudley describes the military effectiveness of Celtic tribal confederations. A summary of the three examples he used is as follows:

Vercingetorix and the uprising against Julius Caesar in Gaul.

Arminius, and the rising under his leadership, succeeded in that it put an end, in effect, to Roman plans for the conquest of Germany… His victory over Varus in AD 9…and effective opposition to Germanicus. (‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’ – p. 55).

Calgacus leading a confederation of ‘Caledonian tribes’ to successful resistance…to Agricola’s invasion and Though losses at the battle of Mons Graupius were heavy, their efforts were not in vain…the Highland tribes retained the freedom for which they fought. (‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’ – p. 56)

It would be difficult to find better examples of Celtic ‘barbarians’ countering the ‘superior’ Roman legions against which – according to Webster – they had no defence. Nevertheless, while the many instances of defeat prove they were far from invincible, the legions constituted the iron core of Rome’s military machine and as such were integral to building the empire. That being the case, a brief look back at some aspects of the Roman Empire’s development, and the part played by the legions in its expansion and maintenance, may not be out of place at this juncture.

Many factors were essential to building the empire not simply the actions of the legions alone. One of these factors was an intangible, almost mystical, quality about the city of Rome itself that fascinated and obsessed not only modern historians but also even the empire’s enemies. Alaric the Visigoth (in 410 AD), although having the city at his mercy, seemed in awe of the place allowing his troops to plunder what could be carried but preserving its shrines and essential symbols – he only stayed seven days. Fortuitous intangibles often determine the course of history, were this not so – and had Rome been solely dependent on its army – then the empire might never have happened. Only by intangible, almost whimsical, serendipity did Rome survive to become an empire at all. The mesmerising fascination that tended to strike enemies of Rome when at the city’s gates affected the judgment of Hannibal. Having defeated all the armies Rome could throw at him, Hannibal had only to attack and destroy the city that lay before him at the mercy of his army. Despite the urgings of his commanders, Hannibal declined to attack instead embarking on an aimless trail of wandering around the Italian countryside – in all he was in Italy for fourteen years. Inevitably, this allowed the Romans to rebuild their military strength and an army with which – under Scipio Africanus – to take the initiative against the Carthaginians. By ravaging their territories in Spain thence to cross the Mediterranean and threaten Carthage itself, Scipio forced the recall of Hannibal to defend the city. Hannibal was defeated at the battle of Zama and eventually forced into exile where he committed suicide. Carthage never recovered, and following a short war with Rome, the Romans razed the city and absorbed its empire. Thus, intangibles – and Rome’s great abilities of flexibility and adaptability – rescued the city and its empire. (While there is debate about Hannibal having insufficient resources to breach the city’s walls, with the Roman military on their knees, the city could not have withstood a determined, prolonged siege utilising local resources and allies. The Carthaginian General had the time and everything in his favour – what he lacked was the will).

Factors such as these mystical intangibles (or is it destiny? Then again, good fortune perhaps) allow empires to get off the ground, and guide their course. A book on the British Empire – whose title and author have passed from memory – concluded by declaring the British Empire was impossible; and yet it happened. The author expressed her belief it may have been divinely inspired. Regardless of all this, empires expand and develop by taking control of the empires of others, thus the Roman Empire gained territory by destroying Carthage, taking over Greece, and financing its future from the granaries of Egypt.

Communications and commerce developed as the empire expanded to become an enormous trading zone. Leaders from outside the empire would – like with the twenty-first-century European Union – on occasions, petition the emperor to allow them to join. However, while minority elites may have sought to be included under Rome’s rule, often a majority of their compatriots violently disagreed with such a prospect. This sowed the seeds of many future revolts and wars. The Roman Army, built around the legions, became like a rural fire service, putting out bushfires of rebellion all over the empire and operating fire breaks against the inferno of enemies outside the borders. However, despite the enthralled belief of Graham Webster and other historians, the legions were not beyond defeat in battle. In respect of the united British tribes’ war against Roman rule in Britain, historians may argue about how the Ninth Division was defeated, or numbers of casualties, but none (not even Webster) can deny the legion was in fact defeated by Boudicca’s forces – no matter how much they may wish it otherwise. However, perhaps the most telling point of all is that the ‘barbarians’, supposedly no match for the ‘superbly’ equipped, disciplined Roman Army, never seemed to be finally defeated. Throughout the works of Tacitus, there are frequent references to ‘natives’, or ‘barbarians’ being ‘subdued’, or ‘totally subdued’, only for the legions to be sent in to ‘subdue’ them yet again, sometimes against the very same army only just ‘destroyed’ by the Romans. The fact is the legions were far from invincible; they could be, and often were, defeated in battle by their ‘barbarian’ foes (Celts included) and it may well be the ‘superb discipline and control’ was as much textbook theory as everyday reality. For the Roman Army was a lumbering machine with seemingly inexhaustible reserves, and so long as the empire’s enemies remained uncoordinated, the ability to wear down their opponents by the employment of increasing resources.

None of the available evidence seemed to influence Graham Webster to be any more objective, so determined was he to portray Boudicca’s army as an ineffectual rabble, naked, poorly armed and out of control. His intention, coupled with his overstating the capabilities of the Roman Army available to Suetonius, was to facilitate a semblance of credibility for his ideologically motivated interpretation of the war. Graham Webster exaggerates any perceived advantage the legions may have had over their Celtic opponents. The extent to which he does so is clearly apparent in the following passage where he is referring to the Roman Army, The training and discipline, the superb equipment, high moral and innate sense of destiny made it superior to any Celtic force, even with ten times the number of men. It is essentially the difference between the professional and the amateur. (‘Boudica’ – p. 24). When this statement is put into the context of the relative qualities of the forces commanded by Suetonius and Boudicca respectively (as it was intended to be), it then turns out to be starkly at odds with Webster’s own history of the war. For if his account is accurate, this would mean the Roman Army in Britain was so ‘professional’ that the Ninth Legion’s commander ‘rashly’ took, supposedly, two thousand five hundred men on his own initiative to face over one hundred thousand and was wiped out. So ‘disciplined’ the commander of the Second Division refused a direct order to join with his supreme commander, and so ‘superior’ that Suetonius was too frightened to defend Londinium and ran away allowing Boudicca’s army to capture and destroy the city. It sounds more like an army that was terrified of their opponents rather than being ten to one their superior. The reality is the underlying ideological motivation Webster had in writing about Boudicca lead him to misconstrue the description of events given by Tacitus, and in attempting to paint Boudicca’s army in such a negative light he only succeeded in making the Romans appear as cowardly, undisciplined fools. Thus, in effect, Webster was unfairly stigmatising both the Romans and the Celts.

The Druids

Nothing emphasises more the true motivation behind Dudley and Webster writing ‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’ and ‘Boudica’ respectively than both these authors’ strident hostility towards the Druids. In a theme that punctuates both books, there is a level of antagonism, and even (seemingly) personal, antipathy towards Druidism that goes beyond merely a historian’s study of events from almost two thousand years ago. This is more especially so when Dudley and Webster appear to believe (incorrectly) that Druidism died out during Roman times. Not only this but as all of their information on Druids comes from ancient Roman sources, that in itself should engender at least a note of caution for dispassionate historical researchers. Dudley and Webster are far from dispassionate, however, in treatment of their nominal subject matter, Boudicca and the events that surrounded her. That both these authors had a political and ideological motive for writing a history of Boudicca and the Iceni is inherent in the flyleaf comments accompanying ‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’ where, the sinister and far reaching power of the Druids is given the main blame in, precipitating the revolt. Then the reason for a disproportionate hostility towards Druidism becomes apparent when it is linked with anti-colonialism, Perhaps for us today, faced with the rise of nationalism in our colonies, this sad story will have many echoes and may yet teach us more. Such is the theme (with varying degrees of venom) that runs like a thread through both ‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’ and ‘Boudica’ respectively. The ‘lesson’ of the Druids is bracketed with, the Mau-Mau atrocities in Kenya in recent years (‘Boudica’ – p. 132) and to Webster, the AD 60 uprising was a religious war inspired by the ‘fanaticism’ of the Druids who – according to him – ensured, the troubles of Boudica were exploited to the full (‘Boudica’ – p. 132). While Dudley and Webster jointly (‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’ p. 68) are very keen to link massacres of Londinium civilians – attributed to Boudicca’s army by Dio Cassius and Tacitus – to what they call, Mau Mau bestiality in the Kenya of their time; Boudicca’s warriors they label, extremists in action. Webster, in his later ‘Boudica’ (pp. 132–133), seeks connections between, our present difficulties and, such a remote piece of history – by understanding the ‘revolt’, and the attitude of the Romans he adds, we would be in a much better position to evaluate present politics. Then what is perhaps the primary reason behind the two authors writing histories of Boudicca is contained in Webster’s next statement, for archaeologists and historians can offer their contributions to the understanding of our present troubles by showing how historical sequences at different times, and in different places, run in such close parallel. (‘Boudica’ – p. 132).

There is nothing unique about the publication of ideologically and politically motivated histories on the subject of Boudicca. Writers and politicians have harnessed her name to all manner of causes and prejudices above all else, however, a misconstrued interpretation of Tacitus’ account served the purpose of promoting empire and justifying colonialism. It is no surprise, therefore, that a cloud of ideological self-interest obscures what actually happened when the Iceni and allied tribes rose up against Roman rule. The accounts given by Tacitus and Dio Cassius were essentially Roman propaganda, but nonetheless, these authors maintained an underlying thread of accuracy. Their propaganda, however, transcends into an even greater distortion of events under successive overlays of an academia imbued with their own version of empire and glory – and an over inflated worship of Rome’s supposed civilising mission. Dudley and Webster claimed it was their intention to seek the truth by means of academic enquiry, aided by the results of modern archaeological methods and discoveries; however, a preconception of the outcome is no way to begin a quest for the truth. Both authors held hard and fast notions on the ‘civilizing’ mission of the Roman Empire, which they contrast with a ‘sinister’ conspiracy by the Druids to manipulate ‘unsophisticated’ British ‘natives’. The outcome of such an ideological approach has been yet another work about Boudicca enveloped in a cloud of prejudice and politics.

Perhaps one of the more constructive sections from either book is Donald Dudley’s concluding chapter to ‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’. Professor Dudley, under ‘Boudicca in History and Tradition’, outlines how ‘the historical reputation of Boudicca’ has been ‘made use of for propaganda’, for various political causes, ‘for imperialism’, and for ‘the simpler patriotism’ of defence against invaders. Anything positive in this final paragraph is, however, soon thrown into disarray when, in referring to archaeology, Dudley states, The characteristic achievement of our age is to find the slave chains of the Druids, in place of speculating on their views about the immortality of the soul. (‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’ p. 130).

It is unfortunate then, that this tradition of making use of ‘the historical reputation of Boudicca’ for propaganda, political causes, and in the service of imperialism has been continued by both Donald Dudley and Graham Webster in their books. Unfortunate indeed, for both these books are now something of a benchmark reference source for some modern histories about the subject of Boudicca. More than five hundred years of misrepresentation, propaganda, and ideological self-interest propagated under the umbrella of Boudicca’s name and reputation, ironically, has ensured her name endures. Because this hypocritical harnessing of her name in the service of all that she fought against continues, Boudicca still awaits the separation of her name from the false propaganda surrounding it. Perhaps dispassionate scholarship may yet achieve this, but Dudley and Webster certainly have not despite proclaiming their intention was to uncover the truth by scientific methods. Both these authors have instead shrouded the already fraught ‘Boudicca story’ in a cloak of conspiracy that not even Tacitus or Dio Cassius thought to conjure up. Graham Webster even skirts the borders of anti-Semitism when he brands Druidism and Judaism as religions, allied to political power and having, a strong political bias arousing passions, directed against Rome with a fanaticism which could be broken only by a crushing defeat that destroyed the majority of the devotees. (‘Boudica’ pp. 131–132). He then uses this concoction of history to classify the ‘revolt’ – as he insists on calling the Britons’ war against the Roman invaders – a ‘religious war’ inspired by ‘frenzies’. Worse than this, Webster claims only on two occasions was Rome, forced to move against a nation’s religion – in Britain and Judaea. According to him, in Britain they succeeded while the Jews remain to this day totally – one could almost say fanatically – attached to their God. (‘Boudica’ p. 87).

In their attempts to link what they call, the Mau Mau atrocities in Kenya to Boudicca, and their far from objective assumptions about the role and motivations of the British Druids, Dudley and Webster have solidified a new layer of prejudice between what actually happened in AD 60 and the way the history books tell it. From the pages of ‘The Rebellion of Boudicca’, and its sequel ‘Boudica’, has emerged a contradictory version of these events, written more with twentieth-century political occurrences in mind than those of Boudicca’s time, and thus overlaid with antagonism and prejudice rooted in how the authors felt about independence movements of their day. As a result, Dudley and Webster have transformed an already compromised history into an even more extremist tale. They tell of ‘unsophisticated natives’ led by a woman, whipped into a frenzy by an ‘insidious’ Druidic conspiracy, falling on ‘unprotected’ civilians to massacre them, burning ‘undefended cities’, getting lucky when ambushing a legion but suffering annihilation when met by the soldiers of the ‘superior’ Romans. The influence of Dudley and Webster’s more extreme views – on the supposed Druid conspiracy and the so called ‘final battle’ in particular – is apparent in more recent writings (two examples are Antonia Fraser’s ‘The Warrior Queens’ and Vanessa Collingridge’s ‘Boudica’) and at any rate, the above summary continues to be the underlying theme whenever reference is made to Boudicca. Yet careful study of the accounts given by Tacitus and Dio Cassius, impartial consideration of other subjective factors relevant to the event, and what is militarily, strategically, and practically possible, logical, or probable, reveal the standardised history of Boudicca to be at best an ideologically concocted distortion and at worst largely untrue.

Dudley and Webster take particular delight in attempting to demonise the British Druids as the principal villains supposedly manipulating Boudicca. They incorrectly portray the Druids of Boudicca’s time as a small group of fanatics – engaged in ‘sinister’ and ‘seditious’ conspiracies to ‘impose their will on large numbers of people’. By depicting the Druids as villains, Dudley and Webster were attempting to extract a distorted picture of Druidism to place in parallel with the groups they believed to be instigating twentieth-century opposition to the British Empire of their time. Specifically, movements such as the Mau Mau in Kenya and the rising tide of opposition to the old colonial empires. The Epilogue to Graham Webster’s ‘Boudica’ is essentially an ideological rant to this effect.

Just who the Druids were, their origins, organisation, and relationship to – and standing within – the Celtic tribes has been a subject of longstanding and heated academic debate. Equally, much rancour surrounds discussion of their rituals and beliefs – whether or not ‘human sacrifice’, for instance, was practised by the Druids continues to be a subject of endless fascination among some in the halls of academia. Because sensible discussion about the Druids cannot be achieved without encompassing the Celts, their tribal society – of which the Druids were an integral part – and the centuries of conflict that existed between them and Rome, historical objectivity tends to be clouded by ideology, politics and religion. This is due in part to the propaganda and prejudice of classical writers (whose writings on the Celts are the main source material for modern historians), the tweaking of Christian monks when writing down Celtic tradition and stories, and the oral tradition of pre-Christian Celts. The most important factor clouding clarity and objectivity regarding the Druids, however, is that the conflict between Rome and the Celtic world continues in many academic quarters. This is more apparent in England because the shadow of Boudicca looms large in the mindset of some historians who are still fighting the Roman cause, and have a propensity to bend the personalities and events of those days to the politics of their day. On the other side of the coin are the modern ‘Druids’, products of a movement that began in Victorian times for people to identify with a Celtic past; whether they had Celtic ancestry or not. Much of this ‘Celtic revival’ is a positive re-emergence of a Celtic reality and tradition that despite the best efforts of our mortal enemies never really died. There are hitchhikers however, mystics, neo-pagans and the like, and amongst them the latter day ‘Druids’. Some of these revivalists may have positive contributions to make, creating a new reality as Celtic identity continues to exist and grow. Perhaps the centuries of anti-Celtic propaganda by ideologically motivated historians – some of whom even attempt to write the Celts out of history altogether – naturally gives rise to movements trying to redress the balance. Nonetheless, whether referencing either accepted academic works or revivalist literature, separating fantasy from genuine insight into the workings of pre-Christian Druidism is a road fraught with pitfalls.

The Druids were a class of ‘priest-like officials’ (as Iain Zaczec described them in his ‘Sacred Celtic Places’) that were integral to Celtic tribal society and the relationship between the tribes. They went through long periods of training – said to be up to nineteen years – graduating at different levels and in a variety of disciplines. The Druids were the guardians of ancient knowledge and wisdom, the genealogists, they interpreted and administered Celtic law, were the educators, the healers, the judges and magistrates, in charge of ritual and sanctioned the selection of chiefs and kings, they arbitrated disputes, both within and between the tribes and were not restricted by tribal boundaries. All the Druids were organised under a pan tribal confederation that held an annual meeting in Gaul; they also established colleges for the dissemination of knowledge and maintained an efficient communication network. The latter partly explains how such disparate, even warring, tribes could be drawn together to counter a common enemy. It is no surprise then that Roman leaders, such as Julius Caesar and Augustus, were so desperate to destroy the Druids and their organisation, even to the point of genocidal campaigns. They did not entirely succeed, however, and when the legions withdrew from Britain, the Druids were still an intrinsic part of the Celtic tribes of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Dudley and Webster label the Druids as ‘sinister’ for coordinating resistance to the Roman invaders of Britain (both in AD 43 and in their perceived role at the time of Boudicca) when in reality, by any worthwhile human standard, they were patriots.

According to Robert Bain (‘The Clans and Tartans of Scotland’ – p. 32) there were three classes of Druids. In pre-Christian Scotland, these were, the Bardi or poets, the Vates or priests, and the Deo-Phaisten who acted as the instructors of the principles of religion and of law. The three Druidic classifications may have varied by name in different regions, but in all essential respects, their organisation and function was the same throughout all the Celtic lands.

One of the numerous areas of contention that arise from Dudley and Webster’s portrayal of Druidism is the question of ‘recruitment’. Just how was a pre-Roman Briton accepted as a trainee Druid? Graham Webster (‘Boudica’ – p. 64) declares that the Druidic priesthood was recruited from the landowning nobility immediately below the ruling tribal families. But this shallow and inaccurate analysis reflects Webster’s bitter hostility towards Druidism rather than offering an explanation, and in reality is an attempt (consistent with the theme throughout his book – ‘Boudica’) to cast the Druids as a small, elitist group separate and apart from the main body of the tribe. In this way, Webster seems to be painting the Druids in a similar light to the clergy of medieval Norman feudalism. Nothing could be further from the truth – one of the primary functions of a Druid was to ensure the unity and cohesion of his or her tribe, thus candidates for Druidic training could come from all levels of the consanguineous society. Identifying potential candidates for Druidic training occurred in several ways:

In the course of Druids’ interacting with the tribe as teachers, poets, healers, genealogists, magistrates, and through ceremonies and tribal gatherings, they would identify boys (and girls) with the potential for Druidic training.

Parents or families would at times propose their children for the honour of acceptance as trainee Druids.

The children of Druids trained in the profession of their fathers (or mothers – as there were female Druids). There was nothing automatic about this however, for just as – unlike with English monarchs – the sons and daughters of Celtic chiefs or kings had no guarantee of succession, the children of Druids would still have to meet the criterion of merit.

Thus, the Druids were integral with all levels of Celtic society promoting tribal unity and cohesion, and in times of crisis, their pan-tribal confederation would call for the tribes to unite in a common cause. But this in no way implies the Druids were not an elite group; highly educated with great knowledge of the natural world, expertise in many fields, guardians of tribal history and genealogy, interpreters of the law, magistrates and arbitrators, they commanded great respect equal to or even above that of chiefs and kings, whose election they had to sanction. The knowledge and practice of the Druids was uniquely symbiotic with what defined the Celtic tribal system. It was their awareness of this