Ruled Britannia

With a great waving of arms, the hired man playing the Druid responded,

'Thou great Taranis, whom we sacred priests,

Armed with dreadful thunder, place on high

Above the rest of the immortal gods,

Send thy consuming fire and deadly bolts,

And shoot 'em home; stick in each Roman heart

A fear fit for confusion; blast their spirits,

Dwell in 'em to destruction; through their phalanx

Strike, as thou strik'st a tree; shake their bodies,

Make their strengths totter, and topless fortunes

Unroot, and reel to ruin!'

Epona, Boudicca's elder daughter, took up the cry of condemnation against the Roman occupiers:

'O, thou god

Thou fear'd god, if ever to thy justice

Insulting wrongs and ravishments of women

(Women sprung from thee), their shame, the sufferings

Of those that daily fill'd thy sacrifice

With virgin incense, have access, hear me!

Now snatch thy thunder up, 'gainst these Romans,

Despisers of thy power, of us defacers,

Revenge thyself; take to thy killing anger,

To make thy great work full, thy justice done,

An utter rooting from this blessed isle

Of what Rome is or has been!'

The first murmurs rose from the crowd as people began to realize what sort of praise for King Philip this was likely to be. Boudicca's younger daughter, Bonvica, continued in the same vein, saying,

'See, Heaven,

O, see thy showers stol'n from thee; our dishonours-

O, sister, our dishonours! — can ye be gods,

And these sins smother'd?'

An attendant lit a fire on the altar before which the Druid stood. Boudicca said, 'It takes: a good omen.'

As Caratach, Richard Burbage took a step forward and drew his sword to pull everyone's eye to himself. His great voice would have done the same when he declared,

'Hear how I salute our dear British gods.

Divine Audate, thou who hold'st the reins

Of furious battle and disordered war,

And proudly roll'st thy swarty chariot wheels

Over the heaps of wounds and carcasses

Give us this day good hearts, good enemies,

Good blows o' both sides, wounds that fear or flight

Can claim no share in; steel us with angers

And warlike struggles fit for thy viewing.

A wound is nothing, be it ne'er so deep;

Blood is the god of war's rich livery.

So let Rome put on her best strength, and Britain,

Thy little Britain, but great in fortune,

Meet her as strong as she, as proud, as daring!

This day the Roman gains no more ground here,

But what his body lies in.'

'Now I am confident,' Boudicca said. They exited to the wailing of recorders.

But for that music, vast silence filled the Theatre as the players left the stage. Into that silence, someone from the upper gallery yelled, 'Treason! Treason most foul! You-!' A scuffle broke out. With a wild cry, someone fell out of that gallery, to land with a thud amongst the groundlings. No one cried treason any more.

'Play on!' someone else shouted from that same gallery. 'By God and St. George, play on!' A great burst of applause rang out. Awe prickled through Shakespeare. They do remember they are Englishmen, he thought.

On came the Romans for the second scene of the first act. When the audience took in their half Spanish helms and corselets, even the innocents and dullards who'd missed the point of the play up till then suddenly grasped it. And when one of those Romans said,

'And with our sun-bright armour, as we march,

We'll chase the stars from heaven, and dim their eyes

That stand and muse at our admired arms,'

the hisses and catcalls that rose from all sides told just how admired Spanish arms were.

Back in the tiring room, Burbage said, 'It doth take hold.'

'Ay, belike.' Shakespeare dared a cautious nod.

'It doth take hold here,' Burbage amended. 'What of the city beyond the Theatre?' Shakespeare could only shrug, hoping Robert Cecil and his confederates had planned that as well as this. Burbage had no chance to stay and question him further; he was on again in the next scene.

As it had in real life more than fifteen hundred years before, the great rebellion of the Iceni against tyrannical Roman rule built on the stage. A legionary officer cried on in despair,

'The hills are wooded with their partizans,

And all the valleys overgrown with darts,

As moors are with rank rushes; no ground left us

To charge upon, no room to strike. Say fortune

And our endeavours bring us into 'em,

They are so infinite, so ever-springing,

We shall be kill'd with killing; of desperate women,

Neither fear nor shame e'er found, the devil

Hath ranked 'mongst 'em multitudes; say men fail,

They'll poison us with their petticoats; say they fail,

They have priests enough to pray us to nothing.

Here destruction takes us, takes us beaten,

In wants and mutinies, ourselves but handfuls,

And to ourselves our own fears paint our doom-

A sudden and desperate execution:

How to save, is loss; wisdom, dangerous.'

Swords, pikes, and halberds clashed against one another. Led by Burbage/Caratach, player-Britons chased