Warrior Queens: Boadicea's Chariot (76 page)

Vietnamese print of Trieu Au, who raised a thousand troops to liberate her country from the Chinese in
AD
248; like the Trung sisters, Trieu Au is regarded as a patriotic heroine in modern Vietnam.

Contemporary painting, by an unknown artist, of Lakshmi Bai, the Rani of Jhansi; both Indian and British sources bear witness to her striking appearance.

The site of the massacre of Europeans at Jhansi on 7 July 1857; the Rani was subsequently blamed – unjustly – for betraying them.

The Rani of Jhansi, a watercolour from Kalighat, 1890.

Hindu mythology contains several warrior goddesses; here Durga, wife of Siva, is seen, seated on her tiger, slaying the demon Mahesasura with the aid of her ten arms; unlike Kali, another of Siva’s wives and the goddess of destruction, Durga (to whom both the Rani and Mrs Gandhi were compared) is portrayed as beautiful and basically benevolent, despite her capacity for aggression.

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.