Still the power of the Latin legions was only partly established, for
while the Roman general was absent with his troops at Anglesey, a
formidable revolt had broken out in the east. A British chief, in
order to secure half of his property to his family at his death, left
it to be equally divided between his daughters and the Emperor. The
governor of the district, under the pretext that Boadicea, the widow
of the dead chief, had concealed part of the property, seized the
whole of it.
Boadicea protested. To punish her presumption, the Romans stripped
and scourged her, and inflicted still more brutal and infamous
treatment on her daughters. Maddened by these outrages, Boadicea
appealed to her countrymen for vengeance. The enraged Britons fell
upon London, and other places held by the Romans, burned them to the
ground, and slaughtered many thousand inhabitants. But in the end
Roman forced gained the victory, and Boadicea took her own life rather
than fall into the hands of her conqueror.
The "warrior queen" died, let us trust, as the poet has represented,
animated by the prophecy of the Druid priest that,--
"Rome shall perish--write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;--
Perish, hopeless and abhorred,
Deep in ruin, as in guilt." [1]
[1] Cowper's "Boadicea."