Here is a wonderful statue of Queen Boadicea opposite the Houses of Parliament in London. She lived in the first century and was queen of the Icini people out in the east of the country. Furious with the Romans, she took her armies on the attack and in her march to Londinium, the Roman center of operations, her forces are supposed to have killed 70,000, and in an act of reprisal, the Romans killed a similar number. Before she and her handmaidens were captured Boadicea took poison. The statue is famous for its lack of reins - she commanded the horses with her voice alone. Also for the long knives sticking out from the hubs of her chariot. Recently acamedics have decided that her name was pronounced "Boudica." How do they know?
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