During the Victorian age there was a surge of interest in the Celtic queen Boudicca. Boudicca led a British uprising against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire in A.D. 60 or 61. Boudicca’s name means “victorious,” or Victoria, and Queen Victoria was keen to associate herself with her heroic namesake. Queen Victoria’s Poet Laureate, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, wrote a poem, “Boadicea”, and the warship HMS Boadicea launched in 1875.

Prince Albert commissioned a superbly fierce statue of Boudicca and her daughters which still stands outside the Houses of Parliament in London. Ironically, the symbol of British resistance against imperial power stands tall in the center of the very city she raised to the ground. What would she have made of Victoria, Empress of India and head of the Imperial army?

The Roman historian Dio Cassius, states of Boudicca, “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 tawniest hair fell to her hips; around her neck was a large golden necklace.”

Imagine such a woman beside the short, stout Victoria in her black gown and trademark miniature crown. They could not be more different, yet both wielded great armies to devastating effect against their enemies.

If only Prince Albert had commissioned a statue of Victoria driving a charging chariot through the streets of London. Now, that would be a sight to see!