Saturday 6 December 2014

Cartimandua of Brigantes meets the Iceni Warrior Queen Boudicca!




Roman Britain in the first century. The Brigante queen was friends with Rome, but the Iceni queen rebelled, slaughtering thousands in her bloody wake. Upon the Iceni warrior queen's defeat, she fled to the sanctuary and committed suicide. It was her honourable way out after her people lie slaughtered on the battlefield. To be taken alive would mean humiliation and degradation in the city of Rome. The Gaul king, Vercingetorix had been publicly executed before the Empire's mob. Cleopatra and Mark Antony's rotting corpses were said to have been paraded before the Roman plebiscite too. There was no other way but to chose suicide and secret burning and disposal of the remains. The warrior queen could never be found. Before her final act, she met the Brigante queen Cartimandua.

What came about was a bizarre plot in which, both queens were being used as pawns in a third party's plot - a conspiracy of Celtic intrigue and lust for tribal power. Power over the Brigantes and their fraternising queen's fragile loyalty to the Roman Empire.

Eight years later during the year of the Four Emperors (69 AD), Queen Cartimandua is about to leave Britain. Her power usurped by her vengeful ex-husband Venutius. Only Rome could aid her now as she left the shores of the Isles to go into exile in Gaul. Three Roman guards sat with her as she waited by the riverside for the Roman galley to come up river. To pass the time, she indulged her compliant hosts with a tale. One that was not known before - Cartimandua's dramatic one-time meeting with the warrior queen Boudicca.


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