"When Prasutagus, King of the Iceni, died in 60 AD, the local Roman procurator Catus Decianus confiscated Iceni lands, and had his soldiers flog Prasutagus' wife Boudicca and rape her daughters. This outrage, coupled with repressive Roman taxes to recover previous loans to the Iceni and tributes levied on the neighboring Trinovantes to build a Roman temple at Colchester, prompted a revolt of the two tribes lead by Boudicca. Boudicca's host first sacked Colchester, massacring the inhabitants and tearing down the new temple. A vexillation of the 9th Legion (Legio Hispania) from Lincoln rushed to the region to suppress the rebellion, but was ambushed in line of march, with over 2000 Roman legionaries killed. Boudicca's army continued their march of retribution, torching Chelmsford and then Verulamium (near St. Albans). Londinium (London) was next, its buildings set to the torch and its inhabitants put to the sword. At this point, rather than dispersing with their loot, Boudicca was able to convince her host of the need for a decisive battle against the Romans in Britain before reinforcements could arrive from Gaul. Boudicca's army continued their advance northwest along the Watling Road to seek battle against the army of the Roman governor Seutonius Paulinus, as the war of retribution had become a war of liberation." *

Hurrah! The statue of Guglielmo Marconi (now in the Essex Record Office but soon to be relocated to a proud, vandal-proof plinth in front of the new Bus Station) aint got nothing on Boudicca. I shall start forthwith a campaign to have a flaming red-haired feisty Boudicca sculpture (based on a recent TV documentary) commissioned and set up at the bottom of Moulsham Street (a position presently occupied by a miserable little representation of a R*man centurion :-(

* http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=19723