with the intention of presenting or delivering any petition accompanied by
above ten persons. The penalty for breaking the law was a fine of £100 or three
months’ imprisonment. The day previously, at Westminster Police Court, Mr.
Muskett, prosecuting for the Crown, had sentenced suffragettes standing in the
dock to the usual two months’ imprisonment or a fine of £5 warning them that if
they ever offended again, he would revive the Tumultuous Petitions Act.
Christabel immediately announced that if the government wanted twelve
women or even more to be tried under that Act, they could be found. At the
Caxton Hall meeting the next day, Emmeline put the plan into action knowing
that, since she was no longer a government employee, she could risk imprison-
ment. She stated that she would carry a resolution to parliament, demanding the
immediate enfranchisement of women, and twelve women – including Annie
Kenney, Gladice Keevil and Minnie Baldock – volunteered to accompany her.^39
As Emmeline limped out with her group of twelve, Flora Drummond hailed a
man passing by driving a dog-cart, asking him if he would take Mrs. Pankhurst
to the House of Commons – to which he readily agreed. Emmeline was helped
up to the seat behind him while the other women formed a line behind the cart.
They had not gone far when the police ordered her to dismount. Emmeline
limped along with her companions, who would have supported her, but the
police insisted that they walk single-file. She grew so faint from the pain of her
ankle that she called to two of the women for support. A large, swaying crowd
watched the women who were surrounded on all sides by foot and mounted
police. ‘You might have supposed’, commented Emmeline sarcastically, ‘that
instead of thirteen women, one of them lame, walking quietly along, the town
was in the hands of an armed mob.’^40 When the small procession reached
Parliament Square, two policemen suddenly grasped Emmeline’s arms on either
side and told her she was under arrest. Still holding the rolled petition in one
hand, and a small bunch of lilies of the valley in the other, she retained a digni-
fied manner as she was taken to Cannon Row Police Station. Released on bail,
Emmeline and her band burst in on the evening meeting of the Women’s
Parliament to a thunder of applause. ‘We shall never rest or falter’, she rallied
her audience, ‘till the long weary struggle for enfranchisement is won.’^41
Emmeline listened with incredulity at the perjuries put forward by the prose-
cution at the trial who accused the women of ‘riotous and vulgar behaviour,
knocking off policemen’s helmets, assaulting the officers’.^42 Nothing further was
said about the Tumultuous Petitions Act; instead, when she tried to speak in
her own defence, she was cut short. Christabel, Sylvia and the Pethick
Lawrences had managed to gain admission to the crowded police court but not
Harry who was waiting outside, in the hall, when Mary Blathwayt arrived. She
persuaded a friendly policeman to allow her to go and buy food for the hungry
young man and other waiting relatives and friends, and shortly returned with
buns, rock cakes, bananas and chocolate.^43 Inside the court, Emmeline had
refused to be bound over and so she and eight of her companions were
sentenced to six weeks in the Second Division.
AUTOCRAT OF THE WSPU?