Queen for a Day

Welcome to Readin’, Writin’ and ‘Rithmetic Wednesdays. Today we include hist’Ry and cuRRent events.

You’ve no doubt heard there is a wedding Friday in London? Prince William (Will) is marrying Katherine (Kate) and one day Will shall be king and Kate his queen.

She’ll carry on a long tradition begun almost 2 millennium earlier with

Queen Boudiccea (Boudica).

About AD. 60, during the Roman occupation of England, Boudica was a statuesque Celtic woman with red hair flowing past her waist.

She became queen when her husband, king of a small northern province, died and willed her half his kingdom. But the Romans figured they had dibs.

They also didn’t believe in women in government.

So they ordered her to repay the huge debt her husband had incurred via lavish deficit spending. 

They beat up Boudica.

This was a mistake, since

Roman soldiers were frightened of Celtic women. They're described  as 

‘very strong, and with blue eyes; in rage her neck veins swell, she gnashes her teeth, and brandishes her snow-white robust arms. She begins to strike blows mingled with kicks, as if they were so many missles sent from the string of a catapault’*

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Neck muscles a-swell, a vengeful Boudica raised an army and led her troops into battle. Her red tresses flying in the wind, she drove her own chariot with her snow-white robust arms to Roman settlements like London. She sacked the city and kicked and killed Romans by the tens of thousands before her rag-tag army was crushed by superior Roman forces.

Legend says Boudica poisoned herself to avoid capture.

ALTERNATE ENDING

The Prude prefers to imagine Boudica nursed back to health by a handsome Celtic farmer. Admiring her glorious red mane and gnashing teeth, he took her as his bride. They lived happily ever after. 

He called her ‘Boo’ for short and they raised scores of spunky little redheaded children.

The Prude mused on what a wedding for Boo and her beloved would be like.

She mused on the upcoming nuptials for Will and Kate.

Like all good musing, it led her to come up with

Thursday’s Quirks of the Cosmos post:

THE TOP TEN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE WEDDING OF WILL AND KATE AND BOO AND HER CELT.

See you then!

*Ammianus Marcellinus from "Celtic Women: Women in Celtic Society and Literature," by Peter Berresford Ellis (0802838081), p.82.