Boudicca, the Warrior Queen by M J Trow (From Warrington Guardian)

Boudicca, the Warrior Queen by M J Trow

WHAT must have been the fiercest battles ever fought on English soil, those between the foot soldiers of the Iceni tribes and their supporters led by the flame haired Queen Boudicca and our Roman occupiers, cost 70,000 lives and changed the course of our country's history.

Yet we know all too little about the battles of 2,000 years ago because although the winners always write the history books even the sophisticated Romans were reticent about recording their triumphs. Indeed one of their historians, Tacitus, gives his name to the word taciturn, aka a sulky lack of communication.

But using methods of detection of which the "goodies" in his crime novels would be proud, the historian M.J. Trow has come as close as we are ever likely to get in piecing together the horrors of the first century in his fascinating book Boudicca, the Warrior Queen.

M.J. has been assisted in this tour de force by his son Taliesin, a graduate in history and archaeology.

Imperialism was a way of life for the Romans. The British Isles had little to interest them so it's likely that Julius Caesar mounted his invasion simply because, like the mountain, it was there - though they may well have realised in the years that followed the fighters of our islands might pose a real threat to their dominance of the known world.

Certainly another Roman historian, Dio, was moved to write that Boudicca "possessed greater intelligence than often belongs to women".

Though ultimately defeated, the Iceni queen has become an icon down the centuries. Comparisons are invariably been made between her and other powerful female leaders such as Queen Elizabeth I and Margaret Thatcher - did not a national newspaper caricature our former Prime Minister wearing a metal bra and wielding a sword on a chariot following the Falklands War?

Suffragettes rallied around Boudicca's London statue, destroyers in both world wars were named after her - and even Mitsubishi used her to advertise their Colt car!

* Boudicca, the Warrior Queen by M J Trow is published by Sutton of Phoenix Mill, Thrupp, Stroud, in hardback at £20.