arrested for conspiracy, sedition, etc.’ She also confided, ‘Although we do not
see much of each other I am very fond of you & value your friendship greatly &
it warms my heart to know you still care for Christabel & me.’^47 The govern-
ment were indeed biding their time and waiting to arrest the agitator. On 18
February, at a meeting of the Putney Branch of the WSPU, Emmeline provoca-
tively mused, ‘I wonder why I am here to-night. ... I have been breaking the
law myself, and not only that I have been instigating and inciting and preparing
and urging other people to do the same. Well, how is it that I am still at
large?’^48 The following day, after Lloyd George’s empty and partly completed
house in Walton Heath, Surrey, was wrecked by a bomb, Emmeline said at a
WSPU meeting held in Cory Hall, Cardiff:
We have not yet got all the members of the present Government in
prison but we have blown up the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s house.
... We have tried blowing him up to wake his conscience. ... Ladies
and Gentlemen, we are firmly convinced ... that this is the only way
to get women’s suffrage. We shall never get this question settled until
we make it intolerable for most people in this country, until we make
the question such a nuisance you will all want to find a way of getting
rid of the nuisance. We have tried everything else. ... I say that for all
that has been done in the past, I accept responsibility. That I have
advised, I have incited, I have conspired.^49Emmeline’s speech was transcribed by Edward James, a reporter on the staff
of the Western Mail, owned by Sir George Riddell, proprietor of the News of the
World, who was building the house for Lloyd George.^50 A copy of the transcript
was immediately sent to the Home Office. The government swung into action.
On 24 February, shortly after two o’clock in the afternoon, Emmeline was
arrested at her Knightsbridge flat for procuring and inciting women to commit
offences contrary to the Malicious Injuries to Property Act, 1861. The Pall Mall
Gazetteestimated that the cost to the public of the last week’s outrages by the
suffragettes was £6,000 while The Standardcalculated that the total cost of
seven years of militancy was £500,000.^51
There was some booing mingled by cheers as Emmeline arrived at Epsom
Police Court the following day; several of her followers talked with her and she
was presented with a bouquet of lilies of the valley and violets, which she held
during the proceedings. Bail was granted, James Murray, a former Liberal MP
for East Aberdeenshire, and Rosina Mary Pott, of Kensington, being accepted
as sureties. When Emmeline returned to court the next day, however, bail was
not permitted since she refused to give an undertaking not to attend meetings
until the Guildford Assizes met in May. On being told that she would be
committed to Holloway, as a remand prisoner awaiting trial, Emmeline declared
she would adopt the hunger strike. ‘If I am alive to be tried at the Summer
Assizes, it will be a dying person they will try’, she cried. Emmeline was in a
HONORARY TREASURER OF THE WSPU AND AGITATOR