The Warrior Queen:
One person in one little fog bound island defied the might of the Roman Army. Unsurprisingly, that person was a Brit. Having incited surrounding tribes to unite in rebellion, the ruler of the Iceni swept into Colchester to defeat a Roman garrison, before galloping sixty miles South West to raze London to the ground, before backtracking up to St Albans and indulging in a bit of sacking. For the Romans, this was an almost unprecedented defeat. To add insult to injury, the Iceni leader just happened to be a woman. Thus the legend of Boudica, the warrior queen was born.
Naturally, the Roman senate could not allow Boudica's revolt to succeed. To lose one of their provinces would be disastrous. To lose a province to a woman would be a humiliation they could not easily recover from, and therefore could not be tolerated.
Predictably, Rome quickly assembled every garrison they could muster to put down the rebels. Unlike Caratacus, rather than risk capture, Boudica is reputed to have poisoned herself. Like a comet, her glory was brief but spectacular, and her legacy lives on.
But isn't it tempting to wonder what would have happened had Boudica, Warrior Queen of the Iceni, surge of the mighty Roman Empire, triumphed? My guess is such an event would have caused more than a ripple in time.
'Whoever were the first inhabitants of Britain, whether natives or immigrants, has never been answered: Don't forget we are dealing with barbarians'
Tacitus, Agricola, xi