Boadicea Lyrics

"Boadicea" is Enya's composition from album The Celts, dedicated to the history of celtic nation and its figures. "Boadicea" (aka Boudica) was a Celtic Briton queen who led an uprising of the celts against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire. Boadicea's husband, Prasutagus, a Briton king who had ruled as a nominally independent ally of Rome, left his kingdom jointly to his daughters and the Roman Emperor in his will. However, when he died his will was ignored. The kingdom was annexed as if conquered, Boudica was flogged and her daughters raped, and Roman financiers called in their loans. In AD 60 Boadicea led her Britons, along with other allied Celtic tribes, in revolt. They destroyed Camulodunum (Colchester), Londinium (London), and Verulamium (St Albans). Boudica exhorted her troops from her chariot, her daughters beside her. In a speech to her troops she said she's not as an aristocrat avenging her lost wealth, but as an ordinary person, avenging her lost freedom, her battered body, and the abused chastity of her daughters. Their cause was just, and the deities were on their side; the one legion that had dared to face them had been destroyed. She, a woman, was resolved to win or die; if the men wanted to live in slavery, that was their choice. However, Roman governor Suetonius defeated Boadicea in the Battle of Watling Street. According to Tacitus, Boadicea poisoned herself; Dio says she fell sick and died, and was given a lavish burial. The history of these events, as recorded by Tacitus[ and Cassius Dio, were rediscovered during the Renaissance and led to a resurgence of Boadicea's legendary fame during the Victorian era. Boadicea has since remained an important cultural symbol in the United Kingdom. The absence of native British literature during the early part of the first millennium means that Britain owes its knowledge of Boadicea's rebellion to the writings of the Romans.