Calling all armchair generals! Boudica's Last Stand.

[Nathan Ross]

This interview with Duncan MacKay

I was just listening to the very same thing

He doesn't explain why he goes for AD60 as the date, and sure enough he doesn't pick an exact site, but otherwise I'm happy to see that in most respects his suggestions seem to accord with what I've been saying for many years!

He has Paulinus marching down to London with his full force, withdrawing to St Albans, and the battle happening very close to there. The book may indeed present a few more specific details*, but it's good to see that the direction of popular and academic debate is finally swinging away from the Webster/Mancetter orthodoxy, and from sites in the Midlands to those much closer to London.

* (I see from the preview on Google Books that the author mentions Chivery Top, and Barry Horne's Dunstable theory!)


Regarding your points:

1, the Britons are at St Albans, the Romans are only 10-12 miles away. No choreography is required to get both sides to the battle site. Both sites are approached up a river valley - the Bulbourne and the Ver - that would naturally form their advance into a column. I would suggest that any force moving with wheeled transport will stretch out along the route anyway.

2 and 3, the Roman flanks or rear would only need protecting in these scenarios if the Britons could easily scale the ridges on either side and drop down behind them without being noticed - which would negate the entire purpose of the position. As I've said, if Paulinus thought this was a possibility he would not have put his troops in a valley in the first place. Also, if the Britons could do this in the Chilterns then they could do it at Church Stowe as well!