largely on physiological grounds and, in particular, that there was ‘mixed up’
with the militant suffragists ‘much mental disorder’, stemming from the fact
that they were recruited from that excess of single women who ‘had better long
ago have gone out to mate with its complement of men beyond the seas’. If
women’s suffrage arrives in England, he maintained, ‘it will have come as a
surrender to a very violent feminist agitation – an agitation which we have
traced back to our excess female population and the associated abnormal physi-
ological conditions’.^47 Suffragists of every shade rallied to support the militants
but the statement fed a deep undercurrent of prejudice against women. The bill
failed by fourteen votes to pass its second reading, a defeat that came as no
surprise to Emmeline. That evening, in a show of solidarity with their absent
leaders and in defiance of their treatment at the hands of a Liberal government,
a record number of members attended the WSPU meeting in the Albert Hall,
over £10,000 being promised for the fighting fund. Although a number of MPs
claimed to have voted against the bill because of WSPU tactics, the militants
pointed out that the bill had been killed in advance. Lloyd George’s support for
an alternative adult male suffrage measure meant the loss of many Liberal and
Labour supporters while the Irish Nationalists opposed the bill in order to avoid
the possible resignation of Asquith, and breakup of his Cabinet, at a time when
they hoped to win Home Rule for Ireland.^48
Emmeline’s hearing in the police courts, which had dragged on for three
weeks, finally ended; Mabel Tuke was acquitted but the WSPU leader and the
Pethick Lawrences were committed for trial at the Central Criminal Court, the
Old Bailey. On 4 April, the day before Good Friday, Emmeline was released on
bail, her prison sentence for window-breaking having been remitted until after
the conspiracy trial. Amid widespread public concern for her health and treat-
ment by the prison authorities, the Rev. Hugh Chapman warned, ‘We
constantly kill our prophets and afterwards erect their sepulchres.’^49
That Easter, Emmeline retreated to the country to recuperate. On 12 April
she felt fit enough to travel to Coignwhere Ethel Smyth was waiting, having
also been released on the same day as Emmeline after serving just three weeks of
her two-month sentence with hard labour (there had been no hard labour).
That day Emmeline wrote a caring reply to the frail Constance Lytton whose
own health had been impaired by imprisonment and who was anxious about the
WSPU leader:
When I see you I will tell you how I spent my Easter holiday. I am now
feeling ready for the future. I hope you will soon be well again & that
you will take better care of yourself in future. I go to Holmwood this
afternoon for the week end & am looking forward to long talks with
my co-conspirators. Much as I should wish the absent one [Christabel]
to be there also I am glad that she is free to direct the ship even from a
distance as she is doing in ‘V for W’. What a fine article hers is this
week.^50THE WOMEN’S REVOLUTION