Hardie and Sir Alfred Mond who urged him to receive the deputation. When
Emmeline heard that Lord Castlereagh had moved as an amendment to the
motion to devote the remainder of the session to government business a
proposal which, if carried, would have brought immediate provision of facilities
for the Conciliation Bill, she cried out, ‘Is there not a singlemanin the House
of Commons, one who will stand up for us, who will make the House see that
the amendment must go forward?’ Asquith then resorted to ‘his usual crafty
device of a promise of future action’, Emmeline bitterly recollected, and ‘all
save fifty-two [MPs] put their party loyalty before their manhood’.^104 She was
not amongst the 115 women and four men who, after six hours of struggle, were
eventually arrested. The following day all were released, an embarrassed Home
Secretary declaring that no public advantage would be gained by proceeding
with the prosecution.^105
Four days later, 22 November, Emmeline was speaking again at Caxton Hall
when a message reached her that Asquith had made a statement that after the
general election the government would, if still in power, give facilities in the
next parliament for a bill that would be so framed as to admit of free amend-
ment; no mention was made of the Conciliation Bill. Christabel rose to explain
to the audience the significance of Asquith’s blow, saying, ‘We will take nothing
but next session. The promise for next parliament is an absurd mockery of a
pledge. ... They have been talking of declarations of war. We also declare war
from this moment.’^106 After a great outburst of indignation and cheering had
subsided, Emmeline announced with that decisiveness that was characteristic of
her leadership, ‘I am going to Downing Street. Come along, all of you.’^107
Taking a new and uncrowded path to the Prime Minister’s residence, the police
had time only to form a single cordon across the narrow street. When Emmeline
reached them she did not pause or slacken her pace, observed an eyewitness,
Henry Nevinson, but with that ‘look of silent courage and patient, almost
pathetic, determination that everyone now knows so well’, walked straight into
their midst, the deputation following, hesitating no more than she.^108 She had a
marvellous way, remarked one of her daughters, ‘of remaining, in the midst of
crowds and struggles, as calm and proudly dignified as a queen going to her
coronation – or perhaps to the scaffold in some unrighteous rebellion against
her proper majesty’.^109 This time when violent struggles broke out, Emmeline
was amongst those arrested; further arrests took place in the evening when mili-
tants broke windows of houses of some of the Cabinet Ministers. Mary,
Emmeline’s sister, had promised suffrage friends in Brighton that she would not
participate in the demonstration that day and risk further manhandling; they
feared for her health since Mary had been ill after the Black Friday violence.
But Mary was determined to go to London and register her protest in some way
on the 22nd. That evening, she went to Cannon Row Police Station to visit
Emmeline who was being held pending her trial the next day; when the police
authorities refused Mary permission to see her sister, she threw a stone through
one of the windows, and was immediately arrested.
PERSONAL SORROW AND FORTITUDE