Boadicea's Chariot: The Warrior Queens

445 Pages·1988·4.84 MB·English

by  Antonia Fraser

Contents
Cover
Title
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Author’s Note
Part One
1. A Singular Exception
2. Antique Glories
3. The Queen of War
4. Iceni: this Powerful Tribe
5. Ruin by a Woman
6. The Red Layer
7. Eighty Thousand Dead
8. O Zenobia!
Part Two
9. Matilda, Daughter of Peter
10. England’s Domina
11. Lion of the Caucasus
12. Isabella with her Prayers
13. Elizabetha Triumphans
14. Jinga at the Gates
15. Queen versus Monster
16. The Valiant Rani
17. Iron Ladies
18. Unbecoming in a Woman?
Reference Notes
Index
Illustrations
About the Author
By Antonia Fraser
Copyright
For my eleven granddaughters
Stella, Blanche, Atalanta, Eliza, Honor,
Ana Sofia, Oriana, Phoebe, Miranda, Cecilia and Allegra
To inspire them
List of Illustrations
Thomas Thornycroft’s statue of Boadicea and her daughters (photograph: Sue
Lanzon)
Crater depicting Amazons fighting Greeks (Mansell Collection)
Ptolemaic plaque showing Cleopatra (Werner Forman Archive/Schindler
Collection, New York)
Engraving of Cleopatra (Mary Evans Picture Library)
Silver coin of Cleopatra (British Museum)
Judith and Holofernes (Ronald Sheridan/Ancient Art and Architecture
Collection)
Palmyrene noblewoman (photograph: M. Roumi, by courtesy of the Syrian
Ministry of Tourism)
Palmyra today (photograph: M. Roumi, by courtesy of the Syrian Ministry of
Tourism)
Engraving of Zenobia (Hulton Picture Library)
Statue of Zenobia as a captive (Hulton Picture Library)
Semiramis (Mansell Collection)
Tomb of Longinus (Colchester and Essex Museum)
Roman sarcophagus showing battle between Romans and Gauls
(Mansell/Alinari)
Gold torcs (Ronald Sheridan/Ancient Art and Architecture Collection)
Bronze shield (Werner Forman Archive/British Museum)
Bronze mirror (Werner Forman Archive/British Museum)
Boadicea, from H. E. Marshall’s Our Island Story
Model of the temple of Claudius, Colchester (Colchester and Essex Museum)
Cast of bronze head of Claudius (Colchester and Essex Museum)
Model of a chariot of Boadicea’s time (National Museum of Wales)
Fragment of Samian bowl burned in the Boudican fire (Museum of London)
Skulls found in the Walbrook river (Museum of London)
The Boudican firing of Londinium, by Richard Sorrell (Museum of London)
The Britons’ last battle against the Romans, by Alan Sorrell (Museum of
London)
Boadicea and her ladies, from Holinshed’s Chronicles (British Library)
Boadicea, from Thomas Heywood’s Exemplary Lives (British Library)
Boadicea, from Aylett Sammes’ Britannia Antiqua Illustrata (British Library)
‘Boadicea haranguing the Britons’, by H. C. Selous (Mansell Collection)
The Pageant of Great Women (British Library)
Countess Matilda of Tuscany (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)
Tomb of Countess Matilda (Mansell Collection)
Countess Matilda at Canossa, by Alfred Cluysenaar (Roger-Viollet)
The Empress Maud (British Library)
Queen Tamara (Mary Evans Picture Library)
Monogram of Queen Tamara
Shota Rustaveli (Novosti Press Agency)
Triumphal entry of Ferdinand and Isabella into Granada (Foto Mas, Barcelona)
Queen Isabella, from the Columbus Monument, Barcelona (Ronald
Sheridan/Ancient Art and Architecture Collection)
Medal showing Caterina Sforza (Victoria and Albert Museum)
Queen Isabella, a detail from The Madonna of the Catholic Kings (Oronoz,
Madrid)
William Rogers’ Eliza, Triumphans (Weidenfeld and Nicolson Archive)
Joris Hoefnagel (attrib.), Queen Elizabeth and the Three Goddesses (reproduced
by gracious permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II)
Queen Elizabeth I at Tilbury (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich)
Queen Jinga being received by the Portuguese Governor (photograph supplied
by the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University)
Queen Jinga receiving Christian baptism (photograph supplied by SOAS,
London University)
Queen Jinga venerating her brother’s bones (photograph supplied by SOAS,
London University)
Statue of Queen Anne by Rysbrack (photograph: Edwin Smith)
Catherine the Great (Novosti Press Agency)
The Empress Maria Theresa of Austria (Archiv Gerstenberg)
Monument to Maria Theresa in Vienna (Roger-Viollet)
Queen Louise of Prussia, a portrait of Joseph Grassi (Bildarchiv Preussischer
Kulturbesitz)
Queen Louise, King Frederick William III of Prussia and Tsar Alexander I at the
tomb of Frederick the Great (Ullstein Bilderdienst)
Napoleon receiving Queen Louise at Tilsit, by N. L. F. Gosse (Ullstein
Bilderdienst)
The Trung sisters (print kindly supplied by Dr Ralph Smith)
Trieu Au (Maurice Durand Collection of Vietnamese Art, Yale University
Library)
Contemporary painting of the Rani of Jhansi (photograph supplied by the Royal
Commonwealth Society)
Site of the massacre at Jhansi (British Library)
Kalighat watercolour of the Rani of Jhansi (Victoria and Albert Museum)
Durga (Victoria and Albert Museum)
Statue of the Rani of Jhansi, Gwalior (photograph: Sophie Baker)
Gwalior fort (reproduced by kind permission of Professor Joyce Lebra-
Chapman)
Indira Gandhi (photograph by N. V. Edwards, Camera Press, London)
Cummings cartoon of Mrs Thatcher and other ‘Warrior Queens’ (Express
Newspapers)
Golda Meir (Camera Press (Goldman/Setton) London)
Mrs Thatcher with model of Chieftain tank (Press Association)
Queen Elizabeth II at the Trooping of the Colour (Hulton Picture Library)
Cartoon of Mrs Thatcher driving a chariot, by Griffin (Express Newspapers)
Mrs Thatcher with members of her Cabinet (Associated Press)
Cartoon of Mrs Thatcher as Boadicea (Gale of the Daily Telegraph)
Author’s Note
‘That’s the Romans for you – four hundred years of occupying our country’:
these indignant words were spoken in 1986 by one who, like myself, was gazing
down from an observer’s platform into some archaeological excavations in the
City of London. Such robust patriotism, undaunted by the passage of quite a lot
of time, reminded me of my earliest involvement with Queen Boadicea, via H.
E. Marshall’s inimitable Our Island Story, a work enjoyed by me with passion as
a child in the 1930s. It was Boadicea the patriotic heroine whose story first
thrilled me; I wept for her treatment – and that of her daughters – and wept
again, but this time in admiration, for her death.
The word heroine, as opposed to hero, is important in all this: for there is no
doubt in my mind that a part – indeed a large part – of Boadicea’s appeal to me
then lay in her female sex (the early feminism of those who have brothers close
in age should never be underestimated). Half a century later in exploring both
the history and the subsequent reputation of Queen Boadicea, those two
interwoven themes of her patriotism and her femininity have not seemed to me
either irrelevant or outmoded. I suppose therefore I can claim a lifetime’s
preoccupation with the subject of Boadicea, even if my early feelings of dislike
for the misogynist Romans have waned – just a little.
In recounting the stories of other Warrior Queens, as indeed in investigating
that of Boadicea herself, I have obviously been dependent on the works of many
scholars and experts in their field, to which detailed acknowledgement is made
in the Reference Notes, but I should like to express my deep overall gratitude
here. The spelling of proper names in a book crossing so many civilizations and
cultures has obviously constituted a real problem; I have attempted to solve it by
choosing that spelling I have judged most intelligible to the English-speaking
world at the present date; but I should emphasize that ultimately these various
choices have been mine, not those of the experts acknowledged above.
In particular I should like to thank the following: HM the Queen for gracious
permission to quote from the Royal Archives at Windsor and Miss Jane Langton,
late of the Royal Archives, for her assistance; Dr Chaim Herzog, President of
Israel, for conversation on the subject of Golda Meir and permission to quote
from material unpublished in this country; Dr Michael Grant for help and
encouragement at many stages; Rana Kabbani for stimulating discussions and
advice concerning the Arab world in general and Zenobia in particular, and
General Moustapha Tlass, the Syrian Minister of Defence; my ‘Georgian’
consultants, the late Sir Charles Johnston (who first called Queen Tamara of
Georgia to my attention), Mr Laurence Kelly, Professor Nico Kiasashvili of
Tbilisi, and Mrs Katharine (Vivian) Ashton; and Dr Graham Webster and his
wife Diana, not only for his help but for their hospitality. Mrs Maria Fairweather
provided me with fascinating information concerning the reputation of Queen
Jinga (Nzinga) in modern Angola; lastly the help of Angus Clarke and Daniel
Johnson, who acted as my occhi and my Augen respectively, translating
references to Matilda of Tuscany and Louise of Prussia, was invaluable.
I wish to thank the following for advice and/or support in many different
ways: Dr R. J. Bingle of the India Office Library and Records; Dr Philip
Crummy, Director of the Colchester Archaeological Trust; Mr Frank Delaney
with whom I discussed the title at an early stage; Mr Donald Freed; Mr Tony
Garratt who reminded me of Charles Doughty; Mr Tony Gregory of the Norfolk
Archaeological Unit; Gale of the Daily Telegraph (Mr George Gale); Earl
Gowrie; Mr Henry Grunwald, former Editor-in-Chief of Time Inc. for references
to early Vietnamese heroines, and Ms Judy Stowe of BBC External Services for
information concerning their reputation in modern Vietnam; Sir John Hale; Lady
Selina Hastings; Mr Christopher Hibbert; Princess Antoinette Hohenlohe; Dr
Lisa Jardine; Mr John Keegan; Lady Pansy Lamb; Professor Joyce Lebra-
Chapman for illustrative material concerning the Rani of Jhansi; Professor Karl
Leyser; Ms Sharon Macdonald; Miss Elizabeth Owles of the Moyses Hall
Museum, Bury St Edmunds; Dame Felicity (Hanbury) Peake for recollections of
her wartime service; Diana Phipps; Mr C. A. Price; Mr Denis Richards; the Hon.
Hannah Rothschild; Mr David Spanier; Ms Dale Spender; Emma Tennant; Mr
Michael Trend; Mr Paul Usherwood; Ms Kaari Utrio; Marina Warner; and
Simone Warner who was my wonderful charioteer in the summer of 1985 when
we explored East Anglia.
I have received editorial suggestions and advice from a galaxy of stars in the
firmament of publishing, including Robert Gottlieb; Christopher Falkus, Juliet
Gardiner and Linden Lawson, all of Weidenfeld’s; Sunny Mehta of Knopf; and
my agent Michael Shaw of Curtis Brown; Mr John Gillingham and Mr Alan