There is certainly a sexuality at the heart of this conspiracy, as the ancient goddesses, those creations of the universal subconscious, were generally creatures of human sexual feeling and appetite if of divine power and strength. Very few Warrior Queens, whatever the true facts of their lives, have been allowed to enjoy an ordinary female sexuality in terms of the propaganda spread about them. The Chaste Syndrome being marked, the Warrior Queen has been depicted, where possible, as a virgin by her supporters (and sometimes where not possible, as in the case of Zenobia and Matilda of Tuscany): virginity too having its own connotations of sanctity. For Gibbon, for example, Zenobia’s ‘chastity’ meant that her ‘valour’ surpassed that of Cleopatra: an interesting argument if not exactly a logical one. Conversely by the Voracity Syndrome, accusations of lust (so much more exciting in a queen regnant than in a king, where prodigious amours tend to be taken rather wearily for granted) are used to vicious political purpose, as in the case of Caterina Sforza, denounced by the same ruler – the Pope – who wanted her possessions for his son Cesare Borgia.23 It was axiomatic to many of the nineteenth-century British that the Rani of Jhansi must be ‘the Jezebel of India’, just because she was an outstanding warrior leader: another interesting if once again illogical argument.
Yet the overriding impression of the personal lives of the Warrior Queens, if one may generalize for a moment, is of austerity, even puritanism, Tamara of Georgia, Isabella of Spain and the real Rani being far more typical in this respect than the admitted exceptions such as Caterina herself, Catherine the Great and Semiramis; details of the latter’s life are however sufficiently veiled in time for it to be quite possible that she never actually possessed the rampant voracity which has enabled her legend to survive. That overriding impression may be put against another subtler one, to which it is most likely to be connected: there is no lack of personal ambition among these Warrior Queens, whatever the fluttering protestations which contemporary social standards may have called forth from some of them. And ambitious women have seldom so far had much time to spare to be grandes amoureuses, with so many more demanding problems to tax their time: preferring to bond men to them by a more ethereal kind of loyalty (in short, acting out their own version of the goddess).
Is it not just this appreciation of the Warrior Queen which continues to make her an inspiration to women as well as a source of threat and excitement to men? Whether or not woman’s nature is in truth more pacific and more tender than that of the other sex, the Warrior Queen is secretly seen by women as one who has made a dazzling job of a position so seldom granted to one of her own sex. Boadicea is a heroine, cruel knives on her chariot notwithstanding: and it can be argued that women need heroines even more than men need heroes because their expectations of independence, fortitude and valour have generally speaking been so much lower.
So Queen Boadicea still towers above her reckless horses on the banks of the Thames. In her case the hand that once rocked the cradle now drives the chariot and shakes the spear and ‘yet though overcome in hapless fight’ she does so in manifest victory. Secure within her monument constructed equally of Thornycroft’s bronze and history’s myth, her conduct is no longer unnatural but triumphant. Her glory may be expected to endure.
REFERENCE NOTES
Bibliographical details of each book or article are given at its first point of entry (the place of publication is London unless otherwise stated). Thereafter, only a short entry is given, with a note indicating where the first full reference can be found in brackets, i.e. in Chapter Four, note 6, ‘Tacitus (III–I), p. 265’ refers back to Chapter Three, note 1, Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, translated and with an Introduction by Michael Grant (revised edn 1977 pbk).
CHAPTER ONE: A Singular Exception
‘Flashes afresh …’ is a quotation from Philip Larkin’s poem ‘Aubade’.
1 Research carried out at the Colindale Newspaper Library fully confirms this.
2 Jonson, Ben, The Masque of Queenes, with the designs of Inigo Jones (1930), p. 35.
3 Cit. Dudley, Donald R. and Webster, Graham, The Rebellion of Boudicca (1962), p. 130; Webster, Graham, Boudica: The British Revolt against Rome AD 60 (1978), p. 15.
4 See Courteault, Paul, ‘An Inscription Recently Found at Bordeaux’, Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. XI (1921), pp. 102f. for a votive altar to Tutela Boudiga; Webster (I–3), p. 15.
5 Ubaldini, Petruccio, Le vite delle Donne illustri del regno d’Inghilterra, e del regno di Scotia … (1591); ‘Le Vite e i Fatti di sei Donne Illustri’, British Library MS 14A XIX. Translated by Angus Clarke.
6 Ogilby, John, Africa etc … Collected and translated from the most authentic authors (founded mainly on the work of O. Dapper), 2 vols (1670), Vol. II, pp. 564–5.
7 ‘Joan Kelly’s, Cancer Journal,’ cit. Kelly, Joan, Women, History and Theory: The Essays of Joan Kelly (Chicago 1985), p. xv; interview with Graham Turner, ‘Feminists Count the Cost’, Sunday Telegraph, 22 February 1987.
8 Pisan, Christine de, The Treasure of the City of Ladies, or The Book of the Three Virtues, translated and with an Introduction by Sarah Lawson (1985 pbk), p. 51.
9 Tocqueville, Alexis de, Democracy in America, 2 vols (1875), Vol. II, p. 179; Gibbon, Edward, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, edited by J. B. Bury, 7 vols, Vol. I (1896), p. 27.
10 E.g. Hacker, Barton C., ‘Women and Military Institutions in Early Modern Europe’, Signs, Summer 1981.
11 Cit. Abbott, Nabia, Aishah: The Beloved of Mohammed, Preface by Sarah Graham-Brown (1985), p. 176.
12 Gibbon (I–9), I, p. 149.
13 De Gaulle, Charles, The Edge of the Sword, translated by Gerard Hopkins (1960), pp. 13–14.
14 Tacitus, Germania, Chs 13–14, cit. Keen, Maurice, Chivalry (1984), p. 55.
15 de Beauvoir, Simone, The Second Sex (1972 pbk), p. 21.
16 Troyat, Henri, Catherine the Great, translated by Emily Read (1979), p. 183.
17 A Comment on Boadicia by W. Rider AB, late Scholar of Jesus College, Oxon (1754); Wapshott, Nicholas and Brock, George, Thatcher (1983 pbk), p. 240; Mrs Thatcher, by substituting the word ‘failure’ for ‘defeat’, slightly misquoted Queen Victoria.
18 Young, Hugo and Sloman, Anne, The Thatcher Phenomenon (BBC Publications, 1986), p. 40; Denis Healey returned to the charge in the 1987 election (13 May), calling Mrs Thatcher ‘the Catherine the Great of Finchley’.
19 Boccaccio, Giovanni, Concerning Famous Women, translated with an Introduction by Guido A. Guarmio (1964), p. 5.
20 Campbell, Joseph, The Masks of God: Creative Mythology (1974), p. 519 note; Leigh Fermor, Patrick, A Traveller’s Tree: A Journey through the Caribbean Islands (1950), p. 374.
21 Carras, Mary C., Indira Gandhi: In the Crucible of Leader ship. A Political Biography (Bombay 1980), p. 47; Breisach, Ernst, Caterina Sforza: A Renaissance Virago (Chicago 1967), p. 24; cit. Duff, Nora, Matilda of Tuscany (1909), p. 77.
22 King, Betty, Boadicea (1975), p. 9.
CHAPTER TWO: Antique Glories
1 See Ross, Anne, Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition (1967), Ch. V, pp. 204f.
2 The Mabinogion, translated with an Introduction by Jeffrey Gantz (1976 pbk), p. 52.
3 Ross, Pagan (II–I), pp. 219, 152.
4 The Tain, translated from the Irish epic by Thomas Kinsella (Oxford 1970 pbk), pp. 52f.; I have preferred this lively unbowdlerized translation.
5 Spenser, Edmund, The Faerie Queene, Introduction by J.W. Hales, 2 vols (1910), Vol. I, p. 381.
6 Diner, Helen, Mothers and Amazons (New York 1965), p. 27.
7 Lefkowitz, Mary R., Woman in Greek Myth (1986), p. 177 and ‘Influential Women’ in Images of Women in Antiquity, edited by Averil Cameron and Amélie Kuhrt (1983), pp. 49–64; Pomeroy, Sarah B., Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (1976), p. 13 and ‘A Classical Scholar’s Perspective on Matriarchy’ in Liberating Women’s History: Theoretical and Critical Essays, edited by
Berenice A. Carroll (Chicago 1976), pp. 217–24.
8 Todd, Malcolm, Roman Britain 55 BC – AD 400: The Province beyond the Ocean (1981 pbk), p. 36.
9 Sobol, Donald J., The Amazons of Greek Mythology (South Brunswick and New York, 1972), pp. 90f.; Warner, Marina, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism (1981), Ch. X, pp. 198f.; see also Briffault, R., The Mothers, 3 vols (1927), Vol. II, p. 457 note 2 for a convenient list of references on this subject.
10 Lefkowitz (II–7), p. 133.
11 The Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus, 2 vols (1956–7), Vol. I, pp. 199–203; Virgil, The Aeneid, translated into English prose by W. F. Jackson Knight (revised edn 1958 pbk), pp. 299, 200.
12 Heywood, Thomas, Gynaekeion or Nine Bookes of Various History Concerning Women (1624), p. 226.
13 Knox, John, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment of Women, edited by Edward Arber (1880), p. 13; for the mignons see Davis, N. Z., Society and Culture in Early Modern France (1975), p. 133.
14 Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, Vol. XIII (Paris 1863), p. 326.
15 Kelly, Amy, Eleanor of Aquitaine and the Four Kings (Cambridge, Massachusetts 1950), p. 34.
16 Cit. Kelly, Eleanor (II–15), p. 38.
17 Green, David, Queen Anne (1970), p. 101.
18 Green (II–17), pp. 109, 154.
19 London Independent, 10 December 1986.
20 Duff (I–21), p. 274.
CHAPTER THREE: The Queen of War
1 Tacitus, The Annals of Imperial Rome, translated and with an Introduction by Michael Grant (revised edn 1977 pbk), p. 330.
2 Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th edn 1974), Vol. II, p. 983.
3 Herodotus, The Histories, translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt, revised by A. R. Burn (1972 pbk), p. 115; The Elegies of Propertius in a Reconditioned Text, translated by S. G. Tremenheere (1932), p. 229.
4 The Works of Voltaire, 22 vols (New York 1927), Vol. IX, p. 173; Diodorus Siculus (II–II), p. 153.
5 Herodotus (III–3), pp. 123f.; Dewald, Caroline, ‘Women and Culture in Herodotus’ Histories’, in Foley, Helene B., Reflections of Women in Antiquity (New York 1981), pp. 91–125.
6 Boccaccio (I–19), p. 104.
7 Herodotus (III–3), pp. 8, 14, 475f., 554.
8 Moraes, Dom, Mrs Gandhi (1980), p. 133; George Brown, cit. Observer, 24 April 1988.
9 Aylmer, John, An Harborowe for Faithfull and Trewe Subjectes against the late blown Blast … (1559).
10 Heywood (II–12), p. 204.
11 See Grant, Michael, Cleopatra (revised edn 1974 pbk), passim, which is the basis of these dates and also much of the following passage.
12 Grant (III–II), p. 37.
13 Lefkowitz (II–7), p. 57.
14 Plutarch, Fall of the Roman Empire: Six Lives, translated by Rex Warner (1972 pbk), p. 290.
15 Cicero, Letters to Atticus, translated by E. O. Winstedt, 3 vols, Vol. III (1918), pp. 337–9.
16 Cit. Grant (III–II), pp. 184–5.
17 Cit. Grant (III–II), p. 261.
18 Grant (III–II), p. 208.
19 Horace, Odes, translated by James Michie (1964), 1, 37, p. 87.
20 Nine Lives by Plutarch, ‘Makers of Rome,’ translated and with an Introduction by Ian Scott-Kilvert (1972 pbk reprint), p. 280.
21 Propertius (III–3), p. 231.
22 Horace (III–19), 1, 37, p. 89; Antony and Cleopatra, Act v, scene II.
23 Dio’s Roman History, with an English translation by Earnest Cary, 9 vols, Vol. VIII (1925), pp. 83–105; Wright, F. A., Marcus Agrippa (1937), pp. 251–3; Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. x (Cambridge 1934), pp. 266–70; Macurdy, Grace H., Vassal-Queens and Some Contemporary Women in the Roman Empire (Baltimore 1937), p. 2.
24 Virgil (II–II), p. 173.
CHAPTER FOUR: Iceni: this Powerful Tribe
The principal sources for the following four chapters are Dudley and Webster, The Rebellion of Boudicca (I–3); Webster, Boudica (I–3); also Frere, Britannia (IV–15); Salway, Roman Britain (IV–7); and Todd, Roman Britain (II–8).
1 Caesar, De Bello Gallico, 5, 21, in ‘War Commentaries of Caesar’, translated by Rex Warner (New York 1960), p. 97; Allen, D.F., ‘The Coins of the Iceni’, Britannia, Vol. I (1970), p. 1 note 4, writes: ‘with little doubt’; but Todd (II–8), p. 24: ‘Cenimagni might later appear as the Iceni’.
2 Ekwall, Eilert, Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (4th edn Oxford 1959), pp. 267, 268; Dudley and Webster (I–3), Appendix II p. 143.
3 The famous judgement of Gibbon on Abyssinia, actually a quotation from Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, (1717), l. 207.
4 Allen, ‘Coins’ (IV–1), p. 1.
5 Tacitus (III–I), p. 265; Todd (II–8), p. 83 note 8.
6 Tacitus (III–I), p. 265.
7 Salway, Peter, Roman Britain (Oxford 1984 pbk), p. 101; Allen, ‘Coins’ (IV–1), p. 2; Todd (II–8), p. 53.
8 See Ross, Anne, Everyday Life of the Pagan Celts (1970); Ross, Pagan (II–1); Powell, T. G. E., The Celts (1958), passim.
9 Clarke, R. Rainbird, East Anglia (1960), p. 110; Piggott, Stuart, The Druids (1974 pbk), p. 36.
10 The Geography of Strabo, translated by H. L. Jones, 8 vols, Vol. II (1923), pp. 237, 247.
11 Fox, Sir Cyril, Pattern and Purpose: A Survey of Early Celtic Art in Britain (Cardiff 1958), p. 59 and illustration p. 58; Salway (IV–7), p. 76; Powell (IV–8), p. 109: ‘no archaeological evidence’ for scythed chariots.
12 Cit. Piggott (IV–9), p. 136; Clarke (IV–9), p. 99.
13 Fox (IV–II), p. 70; Allen, ‘Coins’ (IV–I), p. 14.
14 Allen, ‘Coins’ (IV–I), p. 3 and fig. 1; Tony Gregory, Norfolk Archaeological Unit, to the author, 1985.
15 Frere, Sheppard, Britannia: A History of Roman Britain (revised edn 1978), p. 40; Todd (II–8), p. 53; Webster (I–3), p. 24.
16 Spratling, Dr Mansel, ‘Note on Santon, Norfolk, Hoard’, Britannia, Vol. 6 (1975); Fox (IV–II), p. 84.
17 ‘Very heavy and uncomfortable’ were the terms used to the author by one individual who tried on a torc; see Clarke, R. Rainbird, ‘The Early Iron Age Treasure from Snettisham, Norfolk’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society (1954); and Brailsford, John and Stapley, J. E., ‘The Ipswich Torcs’, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society (1972).
18 Brailsford and Stapley (IV–17), p. 227; alternatively if the Snettisham torcs come from further south, the Ipswich torcs may be local.
19 Reynolds, Peter, ‘Experimental Archaeology and the Butser Ancient Farm Research Project’ in Collis, J., The Iron Age in Britain (1977), p. 37.
20 Thetford, Current Archaeology, no. 81 (1981), pp. 294–7; Gregory (IV–14) to author.
21 Dio (III–23), VII, pp. 414–15.
22 Gardner, Jane F., Women in Roman Law and Society (1986), p. 5; and Balsdon, J. P. V. D., Roman Women: Their History and Habits (1962), passim.
23 Wells, Colin, The Roman Empire (1984 pbk), p. 271.
24 Ross, Everyday (IV–8), p. 146.
25 Caesar cit. Ross, Everyday (IV–8), p. 133; Ross, Pagan (II–I), pp. 62f.; Webster (I–3), p. 82.
26 Livy cit. Ross, Everyday (IV–8), p. 154; Strabo (IV–10), II, p. 247.
27 Tacitus (III–I), p. 266.
28 See Richmond, I. A., ‘Queen Cartimandua’, Journal of Roman Studies, Vol. 44 (1954), pp. 43–52.
29 Tacitus (III–1), p. 269.
30 Tacitus, The Histories, translated by Kenneth Wellesley (revised edn, 1986 pbk), p. 172; Webster, Graham, Rome against Caractacus: The Roman Campaigns in Britain AD 48–58 (1981), p. 14.
31 Richmond (IV–28), p. 52.
32 Ubaldini, Donne (I–5); Milton, John, The History of Britain … continu’d to the Norman Conquest (1670), p. 60.
33 Tacitus, The Agricola and the Germania, translated by H. Mattingly, revised by S. A. Handford (1970 pbk), p. 66.
34 Syme, Sir Ronald, Tacitus, 2 vols (Oxford 1958), Vol. I, p. v.
35 Tacitus (III–1), pp. 327–32; Taci
tus, Agricola (IV–33), pp. 65–7; Dio (III–23), VIII, pp. 83–105.
36 Syme (IV–34), 1, pp. 270f.; II, p. 763.
37 Millar, Fergus, A Study of Cassius Dio (Oxford 1964), pp. 32f.
38 Webster (I–3), p. 105.
39 In 1962 Dudley and Webster (III–I), pp. 144f., wrote of ‘a strong presumption in favour of 60 … with 61 not disposed of completely’; Syme (IV–34), I, p. 20 note 8 chooses 60; but in 1981 Salway (IV–7) referred to ‘more recent opinion’ returning to 61; i.e. Carroll, Kevin J., ‘The Date of Boudicca’s Revolt’, Britannia, Vol. X (1979), pp. 197–202, who argues for 61; however Webster (III–1) sticks to 60, as do Frere (IV–15) and Clarke (IV–9).
40 Salway (IV–7), p. 90 and note 2.
41 See Braund, David C., Rome and the Friendly King: The Character of the Client Kingship (1984), Part III, ‘Royal Wills’, p. 144 where the point is made that ‘we simply do not know how Nero and the King’s daughters were to divide the inheritance, for Tacitus does not tell us’.
CHAPTER FIVE: Ruin by a Woman
1 Tacitus trans. Dudley and Webster (I–3), p. 137; Tacitus, Agricola (IV–33), p. 66; Dio (III–23), VIII, p. 85.
2 Bulst, Christoph, ‘The Revolt of Queen Boudicca in AD 60: Roman Politics and the Iceni’, Historia, Vol. 10 (1961), p. 499.
3 Dio (III–23), VIII, p. 85; cit. Powell (IV–8), p. 76; cit. Chadwick, Nora, The Celts (1970), p. 50.
4 Cit. Jardine, Lisa, ‘Isotta Nogarola: Women Humanists, Education for What?’, History of Education, Vol. 12, no. 4 (1983), p. 233.
5 Donizo cit. Huddy, Mary E., Matilda, Countess of Tuscany (1905), p. 76; cit. Hibbert, Christopher, The Great Mutiny, India 1857 (1978), p. 378; The Scriptores Historiae Augustae, with an English translation by David Magie, 3 vols (1922–32), Vol. III, p. 139; Gibbon (I–9), I, p. 302.