The Warrior Queens
Page 49
Statue of the Rani of Jhansi at Gwalior; she was killed here on or about 17 June 1858, leading her men in a battle to defend the fortress from the British assault under Sir Hugh Rose.
Gwalior fort.
Well-wishers present garlands to Mrs Indira Gandhi, Prime Minister of India and Leader of the Congress Party. (The newspaper caption to this photograph read ‘Garlands for Mother Indira’.)
Cartoon by Cummings, linking Mrs Thatcher to other ‘Warrior Queens’ of the past, which appeared in the Daily Express on 14 May 1982, during the Falklands War, when it was suggested that her (male) Foreign Secretary’s warlike resolve was faltering.
Mrs Golda Meir salutes the detachment commander of Israeli paratroops; her own ‘grandmotherly’ uniform includes a handbag.
Mrs Margaret Thatcher with a model of a Chieftain tank (and tiny model soldiers manning it) during a visit to the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards in 1987; a larger Guardsman stands behind.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in military uniform at the Trooping of the Colour, enacting the purely ceremonial role of the ‘Armed Figurehead’.
Cartoon of Mrs Thatcher in Boadicean breastplates and driving a chariot – Ronald Reagan, President of the United States, is seen, somewhat smaller, as a cowboy – following Mrs Thatcher’s appearance on American television after the conclusion of the Falklands War, in which she describec herself as having the ‘reputation of being the Iron Lady’. By Griffin, in the Daily Express, 24 June 1982.
Mrs Thatcher at the dinner held on 26 January 1988 to celebrate her record as the longest-serving Prime Minister in twentieth-century Britain; she is surrounded by members of her Cabinet (her husband Denis Thatcher is on her left); it is noticeable that there are no female Cabinet ministers to distract attention from the central figure in her glittering brocade costume, among the attendant dinner-jacketed males.
Cartoon (by Gale) of Mrs Thatcher as Boadicea which appeared in the Daily Telegraph on polling day, II June 1987; leading Labour, Liberal and Social Democrat male politicians are seen in chains trailing behind her scythe-wheeled chariot.
About the Author
Antonia Fraser is the author of many widely acclaimed historical works, including the biographies Mary, Queen of Scots (a 40th anniversary edition was published in May 2009), Cromwell: Our Chief of Men, King Charles II and The Gunpowder Plot (CWA Non-Fiction Gold Dagger; St Louis Literary Award). She has written five highly praised books which focus on women in history, The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-Century England (Wolfson Award for History, 1984), The Warrior Queens: Boadicea’s Chariot, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Marie Antoinette: The Journey (Franco-British Literary Prize 2001), which was made into a film by Sofia Coppola in 2006 and Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King. She was awarded the Norton Medlicott Medal by the Historical Association in 2000. Antonia Fraser was made DBE in 2011 for her services to literature. She lives in London.
By Antonia Fraser
Mary Queen of Scots
Cromwell: Our Chief of Men
James VI of Scotland, 1 of England
(Kings and Queens series)
King Charles II
The Weaker Vessel: Woman’s Lot in Seventeenth-Century England
The Warrior Queens: Boadicea’s Chariot
The Six Wives of Henry VIII
The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605
Marie Antoinette: The Journey
Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King
Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter
A Phoenix ebook
First published in Great Britain in 1988 as Boadicea’s Chariot by Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
First published in ebook in 2011 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Copyright © Antonia Fraser 1988
The right of Antonia Fraser to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patents act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 7802 2070 3
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