Your letter did touch me so! about C. & I being your Heel of Achilles
bless you! You need never fear any misunderstanding really between us
because I admire C. too frightfully to mind very much if she does occa-
sionally what the muses call ‘do me an injustice’ – such as imagining I
wanted you to shirk ... Bismarck rather reminds me of C. in some ways- I mean if any one opposed him he quite rightlyhated them. ...
[O]ften I say to people what I most passionately admire in C. is her
quietly accepting that you have to bear the brunt of the fight – &
thinking out how best to use you. I often have said she goes one better
than God who sacrificed his son – a young person!! – It is the same
hardelement that made me kick at the Scotch tour – the calculating
element.
Although Ethel was outspoken on the matter, she also feared she might be
offending her ‘darling Em’ by saying such things about her favourite daughter.
She thus closed her letter in a typically supportive and loving manner. ‘Bless
you my dear one & don’t ever let one cloud of fear about me & C. come across
your sky. ... I love you far too well not to have your one tender spot in view.
Always.’^31
Emmeline, recovering slowly, then moved to a refuge closer to London, ready
for the deputation of 21 May, the last national militant event. Although she
was aware that many voices were saying that militancy had made the women’s
movement unpopular with the general public, she was not deterred. Instead,
posters advertising the demonstration invited the help of the public by asking
them to come and see that the violent and brutal attacks upon women by the
police on Black Friday were not repeated. The advertisements also listed the
three key aims of the demonstration, namely to demand the parliamentary vote
for women, to protest against the torture of forcible feeding, and to claim equal
treatment for militant Ulster men and militant suffragists. As Crawford
observes, Emmeline had seen that an appeal to the monarch by militant
Irishmen, together with a call to arms, had resulted in the convening by the
King of a conference on the Irish question and had hoped that a similar conces-
sion would be granted to her followers.^32
Just before the demonstration began at 4 p.m., Emmeline issued a rallying
call to the demonstrators. Although she urged the one hundred women not to
turn back, whatever happened, their imitation truncheons and eggshells full of
red, yellow and green paint were no threat for the 2,000 strong foot and
mounted police who were ordered to deal with the deputation in any way save
that of arrest. As the women marched from Grosvenor Square to Wellington
Arch, they were kicked and beaten while young male hooligans in the crowd
treated them roughly. Emmeline, looking ill and exhausted, was amongst the
two men and sixty-six women arrested. She had slipped almost unrecognised to
the gates of Buckingham Palace when a large burly policeman, Chief Inspector
Rolfe, lifted her off the ground in his arms, crushing her ribs. ‘That’s right!
FUGITIVE