For those of you who are unfamiliar with Roman history, then first shame on you, and second, by 60 A.D. the Romans (or as I would say, "we" ) were well in control of England and Wales. Not that those nations actually existed at the time, but geographically, I mean.
One tribe of Britons which existed in modern day Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire was the Iceni. They were nominally our allies though in reality they were collaborators who knew which side their bread was buttered on.
The King of the Iceni was named Prasutagus. He ruled with his queen whose name was really Boudicca (with one or two c's, take your choice) but who was known for a few hundred years (including when a statue was built) as Boadicea. In his will, Prasutagus divided his kingdom between his wife, and the Roman Emperor. Who, at the time, was Nero.
The Roman governor at the time was Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, who was not satisfied with that will. He therefore appropriated everything of the Iceni and treated the Queen and her daughters in a totally inappropriate manner. Even Nero felt that he went way too far.
Seriously, how bad do you have to be before Nero of all people starts calling out your behaviour?
In any case, the Iceni joined forces with all of the other British tribes to rebel against Roman rule.
Rome was coming close to the height of our powers at that time, so you can file that one under "a really bad idea". However for a time the Britons had some successes using what we would now call guerrilla warfare. Their mistake was to try to take on we Romans in a set piece battle. We had about 10,000 troops, they had about 230,000 troops. We lost about 400 men. They lost about 80,000. In essence, it was a bad day somewhere in the Midlands (nobody is quite sure where the battle occurred) for the Britons who then returned to being under Roman rule.
While she had her backside handed to her on the battlefield, Boudicca became a symbol of British identity during the Victorian era. Queen Victoria herself was quite often identified with her character. As a result, the Queen and her consort Prince Albert were enthusiastic about creating a statue honouring Boudicca, Naturally, this would have a crossover effect of honouring of Queen Victoria too, of course.
The task fell to Thomas Thorneycroft, who had already made an equestrian statue of Queen Victoria for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Unfortunately Thorneycroft died before he could create anything more than a full-size model. There was no money to have the model cast in bronze. There was also no place to put the statue even if it had been cast. In 1894 someone got it into their head to look for Boudicca's grave on the north side of Parliament Hill. No one is quite sure where or how she died, but there is absolutely no reason to believe that she came back to London of all places. If she didn't die in the battle, it would have made a lot more sense for her to scarper home to the north of London where she would have supporters and sanctuary. Thorneycroft's son suggested that the statue be placed at the alleged (but empty) burial site when there was finally enough money to cast it. To get around the latter problem, a committee was formed to raise the necessary funds.
Even then, the statue wasn't installed until 1902. It sat pretty much where the supposed grave of Boudicca was. However with time commercial interests took precedence and rather than being a monument honouring a mistreated collaborator who (justifiably, it must be said) rebelled, the significance of the statue is buried behind a cheap and tacky tourist stall which sells T-shirts and fridge magnets. In all probability, very few people notice the statue of the lady and her 2 daughters behind the stall, or have any understanding of what it means.
The statue's formal name is "Boudicca And Her Daughters".
