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Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.
Deryk wrote;
You mention that the distance from the borders of the Iceni homeland is only 40 miles but from Thetford more like 75 miles and from Colchester more like 90 miles.

I based the Iceni territory on this;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceni

If the Brits mustered at Hunsbury that makes the distance to their territory equate to Northampton-Cambridge ie 55 miles on the AA route planner;
http://www.theaa.com/route-planner/index.jsp
so as the crow flies 40 miles doesn't seem too far off the mark.

The main point is that Colchester, Dunstable and CS are all in a similar scale of distance from where we know the Iceni to have been, the western sites are all clearly much further away, twice as far away. The distance argument Deryk makes depends on the Iceni, with families, being in London and St Albans, we simply don't know this. I would contend that there is a fair chance that the Iceni families never went on the parade,if there was one, but rather they pitched up for the final showdown relatively close to home. I do not believe it is possible to make the distance from London a defining factor in assessing these sites. If you are going to cite distance then the distance from known Iceni sites of value, i.e. home, may well be more significant and therefore downgrade the credibility of the western sites. I will continue to ridicule the parade theory, it's just silly.

Do the woods not also inhibit the encircling movements of your cavalry?

there are 2 interesting factors concerning the "woods" in the case of CS;

1) if there were 10000 Romans mustering and building lots of field fortifications over the course of several days, as I contend, then the pioneers are going to pretty much scalp the area for construction materials and fuel so no timber is left to significantly impede cavalry or screen the enemy. A constructed battlefield.

2) the horse shoe ridge at CS is surrounded to the north and south by tributaries of the Nene which almost meet at the western end. These are now well mannered agricultural ditches that have been managed since the Middle Ages. It is reasonable to surmise that in 61AD this was not the case and that they were un-managed Alder/Willow scrub on a boggy seasonally flooded terrain. This kind of woodland is virtually impenetrable in any meaningful way by an organised formation. So in this case the "woods behind" may have been a low lying moat of trees overlooked by an intimidating array of ridgetop Roman fortifications. These north and south wooded barriers could be another reason, other than the approach up the Nene valley, to drive the Iceni westwards into the CS valley.
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Messages In This Thread
Re: Calling all armchair generals! - by Ensifer - 03-11-2010, 03:13 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-18-2012, 06:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 12:02 AM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 02:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 05:40 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 02-19-2012, 11:26 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 05:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 09:42 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-24-2012, 10:10 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:11 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 03:25 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-25-2012, 08:36 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-26-2012, 02:57 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 04-27-2012, 01:50 PM
Re: Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by Steve Kaye - 08-05-2012, 02:24 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-07-2014, 02:18 PM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-08-2014, 01:50 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-11-2014, 02:03 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-18-2014, 07:54 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-20-2014, 02:37 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by antiochus - 11-25-2014, 08:29 AM
Calling all armchair generals! Boudica\'s Last Stand. - by John1 - 11-10-2012, 04:11 AM

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