The Chariot Queen

As you leave Westminster Bridge heading towards central London you will see bearing savagely down upon you from the right, with every apparent intention of slaughtering you, three large bronze ladies in a bronze chariot. They represent, of course, Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, and her daughters. It is highly likely that, if in real life they had seen you, depending upon how you were dressed they would indeed have been strongly inclined to do you in.

Around 60A.D., the Iceni were amongst the most troublesome to the Roman occupiers of the troublesome British tribes, and Boadicea (whom we are now inclined to call Boudicca) was one of the most troublesome of the troublesome tribal leaders. Her chariot, indeed, with great curved blades protruding from the hubs of its wheels, looks a fearsome piece of military equipment which even the Romans might have been hard put to master.

The three ladies, however, with Boadicea in the middle and a daughter on either side and slightly behind her, seem very oddly garbed for their circumstances. Boadicea is wearing a diaphanous robe through which her breasts are clearly visible. I came across a rather neat although slightly unflattering little piece of verse about her:

“Madam, must you needs display Your bosom in such disarray? Is it decent, is it just, To so conventional a bust?”

My problem with this display is not so much the aesthetics as the practicality. In fact, her daughters have gone to further extremes. They are both naked from the waist up. This seems odd. The revolt of the Iceni was a serious military operation led by Boadicea, who was a genuine warrior queen and seems to have been a capable general. In fact, she led her troops to the gates of Londinium, the capital, and threatened the city before being defeated, captured and executed by the Romans. I find it difficult to believe that she and her girls were not fully clothed and protected by body armour.

The statue was of course put up during the reign of another indomitable monarch, Queen Victoria. Under her censorious eye, prudery was the rule, so Victorian artists and sculptors were always on the look-out for periods and events which could be used to justify ladies taking their clothes off. Classical Greece, the Renaissance, the Roman occupation — anything would do. However, I still do not believe it.