shaking with weakness and with anger,’ she recollected, ‘I set my back against
the wall and waited for what might come.’ In a few moments, her door was
flung open and the doctors and wardresses stood there. ‘Mrs. Pankhurst’, began
the doctor. Instantly Emmeline grabbed a heavy earthenware jug from a table
nearby, and with hands that had suddenly regained their strength, held it head
high. ‘If any of you dares so much as to take one step inside this cell I shall
defend myself.’ Nobody moved or spoke for a few seconds. Then the doctor
muttered something about tomorrow doing as well, and the intruders
retreated.^75 Assuming an air of authority, Emmeline demanded to be admitted
to Mrs. Pethick Lawrence’s cell where she found her companion in a state of
collapse. The prison authorities would never attempt to forcibly feed again the
leader of the WSPU, but Emmeline did not know this at the time. The
following day she was racked with anxiety so that night she woke up, feeling she
was suffocating; she began to turn cold and could not see. The hastily
summoned doctor tried to persuade her to take some Brand’s Essence, but she
refused; it was only when he informed her that she was released that she agreed
to take some food.^76 The day after her release, George Lansbury, in an historic
scene in the Commons, walked up the floor of the House and when he reached
the ministerial bench, pointed a finger at Asquith, shouting angrily, ‘You will go
down to history as the man who tortured innocent women.’^77
THE WOMEN’S REVOLUTION