ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book considers national memory by tracing the historical re-birth and circulation of Boudica's story in the Tudor period to the imaginative re-configurations of her body in the early seventeenth century. It serves as a sourcebook of references to Boudica in the early modern period and gives a general overview of the ways in which her story was interpreted, presented and fragmented by the different players of the times who wanted to give credence and support to their own belief systems. Consequently, this book examines the different apparatuses of state ideology which processed the social, religious and political representations of Boudica for public absorption and added to the myth they have today of Boudica in popular culture. The Elizabethan mixed monarchy has also been described as a 'monarchical republic' for Elizabeth's reign and as an 'aristocratic republic' for her reign.
