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Boudica (also Boudicca, Boadicea, Buduica, Bonduca) (d. 60/61) was a queen of the Brythonic Celtic Iceni people of Norfolk in Eastern Britain who led a major uprising of the tribes against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire. Upon the death of her husband Prasutagus (circa 60), the Romans annexed his kingdom and brutally humiliated Boudica and her daughters (some sources say she was beaten and her daughters raped), spurring her leadership of the revolt.

In 60 or 61, while governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus was leading a campaign against the druids on the island of Anglesey in north Wales, the Iceni and their neighbours, the Trinovantes, rebelled, and led by Boudica, destroyed the former Trinovantian capital and Roman colonia of Camulodunum (Colchester), and routed the Roman Legio IX Hispana under Quintus Petillius Cerialis. Boudica's army then burned to the ground the twenty-year-old settlement of Londinium (London) and destroyed Verulamium (St Albans), killing an estimated 70,000-80,000 people. Roman emperor Nero briefly considered withdrawing Roman forces from the island, but ultimately Boudica was defeated at the Battle of Watling Street by the heavily outnumbered forces of Roman provincial governor Gaius Suetonius Paulinus.

The chronicles of these events, as recorded by the historians Tacitus[1] and Dio Cassius[2], were rediscovered during the Renaissance and led to a resurgence of Boudica's legendary fame during the Victorian era, when Queen Victoria was portrayed as her "namesake". Boudica has since remained an important cultural symbol in the United Kingdom.