Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Steve Kaye]

'He opts for Windridge Farm' - that's a bit of fresh air (sorry).


The book in question is 'Echolands: A Journey in Search of Boudica' by Duncan Mackay, Hodder & Stoughton (6 April 2023)

'Windridge Farm lies approximately one kilometre southwest of the Roman town of Verulamium and immediately south of the gently rising gradient of Prae Wood. More than one hundred Roman lead sling bullets (glandes) have been recovered from its fields by metal detectorists and fieldwalkers since the 1970s.'. Text from 'The Windridge Farm Glandes Revisited: Clues to Conquest? By JOHN REID, REGINE MÜLLER and SABINE KLEIN. Britannia 2022, page 1 of 24.



Duncan Mackay's selection of Windridge Farm as the possible site for Boudica's last battle is brave and great news for all sorts of reasons. We may finally see some serious investigation of this very intriguing site. It might even scupper plans for building development https://www.stalbans.gov.uk/sites/defaul...t%2015.pdf  (John knows much more about this and his proposed Roman fort-like structures at Windridge).

So, will the archaeological authorities allow the developers to destroy what may be the site of the Boudican battle, or decide they must investigate before the opportunity is lost.

Interesting times ...

Regards, Steve Kaye

[John1]

Points to note on Windridge:

1, I have heard (source not to be revealed here) that the site has probably yielded thousands of glandes over decades of nighthawking, we will never know. (best guess an armory cache broken open by the plough a long time ago)

2, The gatehouse features (I only spotted them after Steve raised Windridge as a site to look at) seem to have traction and I have been told they (at least one of them) will imminently appear in the HER. The Gatehouse and Fort interpretation have not been challenged yet.

3, The LDA letter is dated 2021 so an active attempt on behalf of CP Holdings to get the site into the local plan housing allocation stating there is "no archaeological constraint to developing the site"  despite the Villa being on the HER since 2017. (LDA continue to be a disappointment) 

   

https://suite.endole.co.uk/insight/compa...gs-limited

4, The potential Fort will be the justification for exploration and potential protection rather than a Battlefield proposal.

5, The local Archaeo group have stared their intention to survey (Mag I think) the site as soon as they can get around to it

6, The two missing components here are land owner consent and archaeological survey resources. I have tried to get both to no avail which is very disappointing. 

On the basis of this I am happy the sites profile is being raised, certainly within the context of the revolt, but having not yet received my copy of the book can't comment much more on it's nomination other than to feel it's another outlier to the terrain description and battle narrative.

It's a honking big potential Roman Fort, right outside St Albans... I can't see a forcibus, I can see no fort in the battle narrative but the fort potential is there and could be a really significant site for Hertfordshire and Roman Military archaeology and I simply don't get why it isn't high up the agenda for exploration.... frustrating and time to move on....

   

[Renatus]

The earlier discussion and Duncan MacKay's interpretation of the circumstances leading to the final battle are predicated on the rebels desire to return to their homeland.  The route via the Icknield Way would apply to the Iceni but the Trinovantes and other tribes (if any) would presumably have to take different routes.

As I have argued previously, I consider this unlikely.  If the object of the revolt was to drive the Romans out of the province, Boudica would need to maintain the momentum of her earlier successes in order to encourage other tribes to join the rebellion.  If she simply returned home, the tribes might consider it to be merely a local affair that need not involve them.  Moreover, in doing so, she would hand the initiative to the Romans.  Suetonius would consolidate his forces and launch a massive retaliatory raid into Iceni territory.  The cause would be lost.

Having destroyed the two Roman centres, the colony of Camoludunum and the major entrepot of Londinium, her next targets would probably be those tribes perceived to be pro-Roman, thereby inducing them to change their allegiance and persuading the tribes still sitting on the fence as to where their future interests lay.  If the Catuvellauni fell into this category, as the making of their tribal capital of Verulamium into a municipium would seem to imply, the attack upon it could be seen as the first step in this process.  As I have also suggested, her following targets could be the Dobunni, who never resisted the Romans, or the Atrebates, whose king Cogidubnus had remained steadfastly loyal up to the time when Tacitus was writing.  This would take her west, not east.

Suetonius, if he had based himself in the area of Tring, could make a stand there or withdraw westwards to maintain a distance between himself and the advancing rebels.  However, he might instead have moved northwards up the Icknield Way towards Ivinghoe, which could place him in that vicinity but only if there were a suitable defile there to match Tacitus' description.  In such a case, Boudica could well have felt obliged to follow him, rather than leave a substantial Roman force threatening her rear.

[John1]

I think I just found footage of the actual battle.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp3Bj5xlfsg

[Nathan Ross]

If the object of the revolt was to drive the Romans out of the province, Boudica would need to maintain the momentum of her earlier successes

That's certainly true. One of the aspects of the 'return home' idea (my conception of it, at least) rests on the theory about the fall of Colchester happening in late autumn. Boudica's tribal horde would be unlikely to want to spend the winter in the field. Having already dealt some heavy blows against the Romans, they may have expected that they could go to war again in the spring, or defend their lands in a guerilla-style war. All among the many unknowns (along with all notions of large-scale strategy, scouting, intelligence capability, tribal alliances and logistics - and nobody in this whole scenario has a map!)

Besides, we don't really know how 'nationalist' her objectives might have been, whatever words Tacitus and Dio put into her mouth. Any large-scale strategic planning would depend on Boudica - perhaps a tenuous sort of leader, commanding a disparate band of untrained peasant rebels and their families - being able to exercise considerable control over her vast army. No doubt there were many fiery debates, and many splinter factions!

Meanwhile I had a quick look at Echolands. I like the breezy, chatty tone and the 'imaginative' approach, and generally I found the author's thinking pretty sound. About the suggested battle site I'm less than convinced though - quite apart from the rather mild topography, I don't see how the Britons could have sacked St Albans, as Tacitus says they did, when it lies on the lefthand end of the Roman battle line. Unless they sacked it first, and then pulled back?

The main criteria for selection seem to be the slingshot finds. In which case, I can only assume that the author did not read this thread beyond about 2015 or so, as the site at Newground has Roman armour and weapon fragments too!

However, I agree entirely with his comment that, in proposing a site close to St Albans, he has "shifted at least some future scrutiny back to within the known geographical theatre of the war".

I think I just found footage of the actual battle....

I prefer the 1926 version myself!

[Renatus]

One of the aspects of the 'return home' idea (my conception of it, at least) rests on the theory about the fall of Colchester happening in late autumn.

I still think that this is too late.  Tacitus tells us in the Agricola that the tribes took advantage of the absence of the governor to canvass their woes and to raise the rebellion.  It would make no sense to leave this almost to the time when he would be expected to have ended his campaign.  That is what happened in the event but that is probably because the conquest of Mona was achieved more quickly than might have been expected.  The comparative ease with which Suetonius seems to have overcome opposition on the island may be relevant when considering Agricola's apparent confidence in achieving the same result very late in the season and with only a limited number of troops (Agricola, 18).  From Boudica's point of view, there was no need to wait until the harvest.  They had the grain that was to sustain them until harvest-time.  They could start the revolt with that and seize whatever else they needed from Roman storehouses or pro-Roman tribes.

Besides, we don't really know how 'nationalist' her objectives might have been, whatever words Tacitus and Dio put into her mouth.

If by 'nationalist' we are thinking of the creation of a united kingdom of the British, that almost certainly was not in Boudica's mind.  If we assume that Tacitus had access to official records, including Suetonius' reports, and probably discussed the revolt with Agricola, we would be justified in believing that he reflected the contemporary Roman perception that her objective was to drive the Romans from the province.  This may have been inferred from the destruction of the centres of Roman influence and the general progress of the revolt or have derived from information gained from prisoners or perhaps from tribes that had been canvassed to join the revolt but had not done so.  Nevertheless, it is a perception that may be taken to have been held by those close to the action and is very likely to have been accurate.

[Nathan Ross]

probably because the conquest of Mona was achieved more quickly than might have been expected.

Perhaps, yes. Echolands, I notice, puts Paulinus on the Mona strait early in AD60!

Although that same passage from Agricola could be read a different way: "Now even the gods are beginning to pity us, for they are keeping away the Roman general, and detaining his army far from us in another island" (qui Romanum ducem absentem, qui relegatum in alia insula exercitum detinerent) sounds rather like the Mona operation was taking longer than expected, and Paulinus might be 'detained' for most of the year.

How long would you expect the campaign might have taken, at its shortest? I would think the need to march all the way from (probably) Wroxeter, building roads and provisioning forts along the route, then building a fleet of barges, then the crossing itself and the conquest of a fairly large island, would not be the work of any less than two or three months.

[Renatus]

sounds rather like the Mona operation was taking longer than expected, and Paulinus might be 'detained' for most of the year.

I don't think we need read too much into this.  'Detineo' can certainly mean 'hold down, keep back, detain' but it can also mean 'occupy, engage'.  So the passage need mean no more than that, at the time the tribes were discussing their grievances, Suetonius and his army were engaged in operations about as far westward from East Anglia as it was possible to get.

How long would you expect the campaign might have taken, at its shortest? I would think the need to march all the way from (probably) Wroxeter, building roads and provisioning forts along the route, then building a fleet of barges, then the crossing itself and the conquest of a fairly large island, would not be the work of any less than two or three months.

Again, we should not make too much of this.  Road-building would be no more than pioneers going ahead of the main column and clearing obstacles.  Much of the time, advantage could have been taken of established track-ways.  Any forts that might be constructed would not be permanent but merely glorified marching camps, which could be thrown up in a very short time.  So far as the building of barges is concerned, that would depend upon the size of the force attacking the island but, if I am right about the size of Suetonius' army, the combined engineering capacity of three legions could knock up the required number of what were probably simply large punts in pretty short order.  As I have observed before, it would appear from Tacitus' account that the inhabitants of Mona threw everything they had into opposing the Roman landing and, when that failed, they had nothing left.  After that, the conquest of the island was really no more than mopping up.  Of course, all this depends upon when Suetonius started out but, if he started sufficiently early (perhaps to achieve an element of surprise), even two or three months need not take him beyond early or mid-summer.

[kavan]

I have just read Simon Scarrow's latest book of the adventures of Cato and Macro. It starts in AD60 with Macro as chief magistrate in Colchester. It finishes with Cato in charge of an auxiliary cohort on Anglesey and Macro beside the burning temple. The last paragraph has a messenger arriving at Anglesey from London after only six days. Suetonius orders the cavalry to ride to London. It is June AD 61.

[Renatus]

 Anglesey from London after only six days

That's 12 hours a day at 4 mph.  No great urgency, then.

[Nathan Ross]

Suetonius orders the cavalry to ride to London.

Oh dear!

Six days would be slower than the speed of the ordinary cursus publicus, which covered about 50 miles a day. If the province was in danger a military courier could have made the journey in half the time; and we have records of couriers doing 150 miles in a day.

[John1]

The Battlefields Trust Boudicca Study Day a few weeks ago featured the candidacies of Mancetter, Bicester and Little Brickhill. A general talk on the Roman Military was presented by author Harry Sidebottom..... but now they are having an Annual meeting at St Albans featuring Harry Sidebottom talking about the "Boudica Revolt". Maybe Windridge has another promotor?? Let us know if anyone goes on 3rd June 2023...

   

   

[John1]

Windridge Fort got formalised: 

   

[John1]

If you like sites without a significant defile and a Fort in the same field (Windridge) ... this could be for you 

https://historypodblast.com/boudicas-battle-of-britain/

[Theoderic]

If you like sites without a significant defile and a Fort in the same field (Windridge) ... this could be for you 

https://historypodblast.com/boudicas-battle-of-britain/

I have to say that I like the general narrative by Duncan Mackay and it was touched upon by Harry Sidebottom at his Battlefield Trust lecture at St Albans and he mentioned Echolands but in a general way. 

The thrust of Harry's amusing lecture was that he felt that there wasn't much to go on regarding archaeology and whether we could rely on the descriptions from Tacitus or Dio either (probably what most of us realised years ago but the fun is trying to make it work with what we do have), although Harry thinks that the rebellion was AD61 but also that Boudicca seems to be associated with any rebel cause nowadays.

Regarding the Windrush site it seems that apart from the lead shot and the fort(?), and that there is a bit of a valley and the site overlooks Watling Street and the Camlet Way, there isn't that much to recommend it.

There is also a river delimiting one area of the battlefield, which we have always thought could be problematic as a river is never mentioned in Tacitus.

Also it effectively would be a threat to Boudicca's flank as she marched toward St Albans (if she came up Watling Street from London) so she would not have destroyed St Albans but have gone to battle first.

This of course could imply that SP burnt the granaries denying any food  from the Brythons that could not be transported, before he left after evacuating the citizens from St Albans and it was not Boudicca at all.