awaited statement, made on 1 June, said that the week set aside for the bill
would be ‘elastic’ and that the opportunity offered for its passage through parlia-
ment a real one.^52
Grey’s statement seemed to give Emmeline a new upsurge of hope as she
poured all her energies into advertising the great demonstration, planned for
17 June, that would show once again the support for a women’s suffrage
measure. The WSPU-sponsored Women’s Coronation Procession, in which
twenty-eight other suffrage groupings would take part, was in response to the
Royal Processions, planned for 22 and 23 June, which would be overwhelm-
ingly representative of the ‘manhood of the Empire’, with no place for women,
the ‘King’s loyal subjects’.^53 On 8 June, accompanied by Emmeline Pethick
Lawrence, Mabel Tuke and Vida Goldstein, she opened the WSPU Kiosk at
the Festival of Empire, held at the Crystal Palace, at which leaflets about the
forthcoming procession were given away as well as WSPU merchandise sold.^54
Emmeline sought too the help of Elizabeth Robins. ‘Various literary people are
writing advance letters or articles about it [the procession] & its significance
to the papers & we wonder if you will try to get something into either the
Morning Post, Standard or Telegraph.’^55 Emmeline’s hope for a settlement of
the women’s franchise question rose higher when she learnt that Asquith had
explained to Lord Lytton, in a letter dated 16 June, that, although the
Government was divided on the merits of the bill, they were ‘unanimous in
their determination to give effect, not only in the letter but in the spirit, to
the promise in regard to facilities which I made on their behalf before the last
General Election’.^56 In hindsight, she observed bitterly, ‘we had something yet
to learn of the treachery of the Asquith Ministry and capacity for cold-
blooded lying’.^57
As Tickner points out, the procession of between 40,000 and 50,000 women
that marched from the Embankment to the Albert Hall on 17 June, from at
least twenty-eight suffrage organisations, was the largest, most spectacular, most
triumphant, most harmonious and representative of all the demonstrations in
the campaign.^58 On this bright but cool June day, Flora Drummond, on horse-
back, led the way followed by the colour bearer, Charlotte Marsh. Emmeline
and the other WSPU officials – Christabel, Emmeline Pethick Lawrence and
Mabel Tuke – walked behind Marjorie Annan Bryce gallantly mounted as Joan
of Arc. Walking five abreast, the other participants marched in contingents as
banners and pennants fluttered in the breeze and seventy bands played. The
Prisoners’ Pageant, nearly 700 strong, gave place to the Historical Pageant,
illustrating the forms of political power held by British women through the
ages. Then came the Empire Pageant and International Contingent, repre-
senting countries as far afield as Fiji, Finland and Roumania, followed by a host
of other colourful groupings. Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy, who had spent
forty-six years of her life fighting for the vote, reviewed the seven-mile-long
procession from a seat on a balcony in St. James’s Street decorated with a
banner stating ‘England’s Oldest Militant Suffragette Greets Her Sisters’; she
THE TRUCE RENEWED