Smoke rising above burning cities. Soldiers lying butchered in the roads of Britannia,

Lundinium abandoned to the flames, Roman Britain was on its knees.

At the head of a vast tribal army stands a woman Rome never saw coming.

Budica, or at least that's what we think she was called.

Flogged, dishonoured, her daughters brutalised, she transformed grief into fury

and called Celtic Britain to war.

And so, from the war chariot of Budica herself, this is After Dark.

Music Hello and welcome to After Dark. My name is Dr Anthony Anthony Delaney and we are back for more dastardly deeds from the dark side of history. And who better to help us through some of these deeds than Professor Kate Williams. Kate, welcome to After Dark. Thank you for having me. How has it taken us this long to

have you on this podcast? I'm thrilled to be on the show. I'm such a fan. I'm thrilled. Well, I am delighted

to have you here. We are going to talk about different elements from your new book over two episodes,

Regina, and this is a new history of women and power. It's out in the 4th of June. Do get yourself a copy. I was very lucky to read an early edition of this. You are going to want to get your hands on this. How are you feeling? Because it's a big old process, isn't it? Getting the book out. And then suddenly you're like, oh, my God, I have deadlines, and then this has to happen and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then suddenly you're heading out to bookshops in the next few weeks. How are you feeling about the whole thing?

Are you, are you, you're very good of being calm and being altogether. Oh, it's terrifying. It's terrifying. You spend so long writing the book, as you know, Anthony, spent someone writing it, you're deep in there with the people. And then you press send and you can't get it back. You can't change anything. You can't alter anything. It's got to go.

It's got to go out. with the people and then you press send and you can't get it back. You can't change anything.

You can't alter anything. It's got to go. It's got to go out in the world. So that send when I knew

that was the last time I could fiddle or tinker was a painful moment. But I'm ready to see it out in

the world. I signed lots of copies now for bookshop. So it's going

out there. And I mean, there are a lot of queens in there. I think there's about 80 queens

in there that I've stuffed in all the queens. So I hope that if they're out there reading a copy,

that these queens like it. But yes, the transition from beavering at home under your electric blanket writing away.

It's a shock, right?

And then the transition from beavering away in the archives when no one knows what you're

doing and you're just scribbling away in the archives to out it goes into the wild.

...