years, for 16 years, or for the whole of our lives, the Government must
not think that they can stop this agitation. It will go on. ... We are
here not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to
become law-makers.^17Emmeline’s pleading moved her listeners to tears; even the face of Curtis
Bennett quivered. However, no mercy was shown. The magistrate found the
defendants guilty and, denying them political status, ordered they be bound
over to keep the peace for twelve months, in default of which Emmeline and
Flora Drummond would serve three months, and Christabel ten weeks, in the
Second Division. All three chose imprisonment. To an entranced public
Emmeline Pankhurst now became the ‘embodiment of the nation’s mother-
hood, striving magnificently for citizenship, churlishly thwarted and betrayed’.^18
Emmeline’s first act on reaching Holloway was to demand that the
Governor be sent for. When he arrived, she told him that suffragettes would
no longer submit to be treated as ordinary law-breakers and therefore would
refuse to be searched and to undress in the presence of the wardresses. For
herself, Emmeline claimed the right as a political offender to speak to her
fellow political prisoners during exercise or whenever she came in contact with
them. While the Governor agreed to waive the search and to allow the
changing of clothes in the privacy of one’s own cell, he informed Emmeline
that he would have to refer her third demand to the Home Secretary.
Immediately, Emmeline sent a petition to Herbert Gladstone asking to be
treated as a political prisoner with the right to have books and newspapers of
her own selection; to be allowed to do literary work and needlework of her
own choosing; to see her secretary and deal with correspondence relative to
her public work; to associate, to a reasonable degree, with Christabel, Flora
Drummond and the other imprisoned suffragettes; to wear her own clothing,
and to provide her own food.^19
Then a severe attack of migraine, which necessitated removal to a hospital
cell, laid Emmeline low; she was barely able to struggle to her feet when the
Governor visited her with the news that the Home Secretary had refused all her
demands. In the cell next door was Flora Drummond; she was in the early stages
of pregnancy and having fainted, had been removed to the hospital wing. When
Flora was told she would be released early, on grounds of ill health, she cried out
loudly to the Union leader, ‘The Home Secretary has ordered me out!’ ‘I am
glad’, Emmeline replied, as the wardress scolded her for breaking prison rules,
‘because now you will be able to carry on the work.’^20
As Emmeline slowly regained her health, her wrath about the silence rule
grew stronger. On Sunday, 1 November, at the afternoon outdoor exercise in
the cold and cheerless autumn weather, she called out to Christabel to stand
still till she came to her. Christabel halted. A trembling Emmeline walked to
her, linking arms and speaking in low tones. ‘I shall listen to everything you
say’, cried a wardress running towards Emmeline who tersely replied, ‘You are
EMMELINE AND CHRISTABEL