imagine Mrs. Pankhurst had not played ball games in her youth, and the first
stone flew backwards out of her hand, narrowly missing my dog.’ With each
failed attempt, Emmeline assumed a more and more ferocious expression until a
loud thud proclaimed success and a ‘smile of such beatitude’ stole across her
face that Ethel collapsed in laughter amongst the heather. Emmeline was not
amused.^30
On returning to Clement’s Inn, Emmeline hastily wrote to Ethel a letter
which was never posted but later found in a police raid on WSPU offices. The
WSPU had always announced in advance when their demonstrations would be
held and Emmeline had already written to Asquith telling him about the depu-
tation for 4 March. But now Emmeline told Ethel about another plan:
On Friday [1 March] there will be an unannounced affair, a sort of skir-
mish, in which some of our bad, bold ones will take part, an
unadvertised affair. I shall take part, but not in the way I told you of –
that is off. On Monday [4 March] there will be the affair as originally
planned. C. and I have talked it over. My cough is troublesome. I must
take care, or I shall not be very fit for the fray at the end of the week.
There may be a long trial. I will meet your train on Monday.^31On 1 March the WSPU struck for the first time without warning. At half
past five in the afternoon, Emmeline, Mabel Tuke and Kitty Marshall drove in a
taxi to the Prime Minister’s residence at 10 Downing Street and broke two of
the windows. They were immediately arrested. The following hour, at intervals
of fifteen minutes, small relays of harmless looking, well-dressed women armed
with hammers hidden in muffs, smashed plate glass windows in fashionable
shops and major department stores in London’s West End while a smaller
number created a fresh disturbance some two hours later. Emmeline, described
by The Timesas ‘the notorious agitator for the Parliamentary franchise for
women’, was amongst the 121 arrested who, it was claimed, had broken nearly
four hundred shop windows causing about £5,000 worth of damage.^32 In Bow
Street Police Court the following day, she reminded the magistrate that women
had failed to get the vote since they had failed to use the methods of agitation
used by men. To support her case, Emmeline pointed out that within the last
fortnight, a member of the government, Mr. Hobhouse, had said that women
had not proved their desire for the vote because they had done nothing akin to
that which characterised men’s protest in 1832, when they burnt down
Nottingham Castle, and in 1867, when they tore down Hyde Park railings.
Defiantly but politely, Emmeline told the magistrate that she hoped the demon-
stration would show the government that the women’s agitation would
continue:
If not, if you send me to prison, as soon as I come out of prison I will go
further, to show that women who have to pay the salaries of CabinetTHE WOMEN’S REVOLUTION