Boudicca (Play)

Boudicca is a play written by William Shakespeare under contract by Sir William Cecil.

It tells the story of Boudicca, the ancient Queen of the British tribe known as the Icini, and glorifies her struggle against the Roman occupiers of Britain.

In Boudicca, Boudicia was designed, both by character and by costume, to resemble the then-deposed Queen Elizabeth. The story follows the Icini army from its humble beginnings when it first revolts against the Romans through a series of victories before Boudicca, inspired to overconfidence and against the advice of her generals, overextends her forces and endures a hard reversal of fortune. In the final scene, a Roman soldier executes Boudicca, but not before the queen defiantly prophesies that "a thousand years and more hence" another queen would rule in Britain, one who would finish what she had started and bring the island's people to the glory and dominance they deserved--a clear reference to Elizabeth (though the English were in fact descended from the Saxons, a Germanic tribe which conquered the island from the Britons who were descended from Boudicca's people in the fifth and sixth centuries).

After Boudicca's dramatic death scenes, which brought the audience, alternately, to tears and stunned silence when the play debuted, Shakespeare himself delivered the following rhymed couplet: "No epilogue here, unless you make it/If you want your freedom, go and take it." When the play debuted, that couplet inspired the audience to storm the Tower of London and liberate Elizabeth.

After Elizabeth was restored to the throne, she visited the Globe Theater to see an encore performance of Boudicca. Following the performance, she promised to become the patron of Lord Westmoreland's Men (thereafter known as The Queen's Men) and knighted Shakespeare.

The scene inRuled Britannia in which Boudicca debuted may well be the most dramatic, moving, and action-packed scene Harry Turtledove ever wrote.