My first act on reaching Holloway was to demand that the Governor be sent for. When he came I told him that the Suffragettes had resolved that they would no longer submit to being treated as ordinary law-breakers. In the course of our trial two Cabinet Ministers had admitted that we were political offenders, and therefore we should henceforth refuse to be searched or to undress in the presence of the wardresses. For myself I claimed the right, and I hoped the others would do likewise, to speak to my friends during exercise, or whenever I came in contact with them. The Governor, after reflection, yielded to the first two demands, but said that he would have to consult the Home Office before permitting us to break the rule of silence. We were accordingly allowed to change our clothing privately, and, as a further concession, were placed in adjoining cells. This was little advantage to me, however, since within a few days I was removed to a hospital cell, suffering from the illness which prison life always inflicts on me. Here the Governor visited me with the unwelcome news that the Home Secretary had refused to allow me the privilege of speech with my fellow prisoners. I asked him if I might, when I was strong enough to walk, take exercise with my friends. To this he assented, and I soon had the joy of seeing my daughter and the other brave comrades, and walking with them in the dismal courtyard of the prison. Single file we walked, at a distance of three or four feet from one another, back and forth under the stony eyes of the wardresses. The rough flags of the pavement hurt our feet, shod in heavy, shapeless prison boots. The autumn days were cold and cheerless, and we shivered violently under our scanty cloaks. But of all our hardships the ceaseless silence of our lives was worst.

MRS. PANKHURST AND MISS CHRISTABEL PANKHURST
IN PRISON DRESS

At the end of the second week I decided I would no longer endure it. That afternoon at exercise I suddenly called my daughter by name and bade her stand still until I came up to her. Of course she stopped, and when I reached her side we linked arms and began to talk in low tones. A wardress ran up to us, saying: "I shall listen to everything you say." I replied: "You are welcome to do that, but I shall insist on my right to speak to my daughter." Another wardress had hastily left the yard, and now she returned with a large number of wardresses. They seized me and quickly removed me to my cell, while the other suffrage prisoners cheered my action at the top of their voices. For their "mutiny" they got three days' solitary confinement, and I, for mine, a much more severe punishment. Unrepentant, I told the Governor that, in spite of any punishment he might impose on me, I would never again submit to the silence rule. To forbid a mother to speak to her daughter was infamous. For this I was characterised as a "dangerous criminal" and was sent into solitary confinement, without exercise or chapel, while a wardress was stationed constantly at my cell door to see that I communicated with no one.

It was two weeks before I saw any of my friends again, and meantime the health of Mrs. Drummond had been so seriously impaired that she was released for hospital treatment. My daughter also, I learned, was ill, and in desperation I made application to the Board of Visiting Magistrates to be allowed to see her. After a long conference, during which I was made to wait outside in the corridor, the magistrates returned a refusal, saying that I might renew my application in a month. The answer then, they said, would depend on my conduct. A month! My girl might be dead by that time. My anxiety sent me to bed ill again, but, although I did not know it, relief was already on its way. I had told the visiting magistrates that I would wait until public opinion got within those walls, and this happened sooner than I had dared to hope. Mrs. Drummond, as soon as she was able to appear in public, and the other suffrage prisoners, as they were released, spread broadcast the story of our mutiny, and of a subsequent one led by Miss Wallace Dunlop, which sent a large number of women into solitary confinement. The Suffragettes marched by thousands to Holloway, thronging the approaches to the prison street. Round and round the prison they marched, singing the Women's Marseillaise and cheering. Faintly the sound came to our ears, infinitely lightening our burden of pain and loneliness. The following week they came again, so we afterwards learned, but this time the police turned them back long before they reached the confines of the prison.

The demonstrations, together with a volley of questions asked in the House of Commons, told at last. Orders came from the Home Office that I was to see my daughter, and that we were to be allowed to exercise and to talk together for one hour each day. In addition, we were to be permitted the rare privilege of reading a daily newspaper. Then, on December 8th, the day of Christabel's release, orders came that I, too, should be discharged, two weeks before the expiration of my sentence.

At the welcome breakfast given us, as released prisoners, at Lincoln's Inn Hotel, I told our members that henceforth we should all insist on refusing to abide by ordinary prison rules. We did not propose to break laws and then shirk punishment. We simply meant to assert our right to be recognised as political prisoners. We reached this point after due reflection. We first set ourselves not to complain of prison, not to say anything about it, to avoid it, to keep away from all side issues, to keep along the straight path of political reform, to get the vote; because we knew that when we had won it we could reform prisons and a great many other abuses as well. But now that we had had in the witness box the admission of Cabinet Ministers that we are political offenders, we should in future demand the treatment given to men political offenders in all civilised countries. "If nations," I said, "are still so governed that they make political offenders, then Great Britain is going to treat her political offenders as well as political offenders are treated by other nations. If it were the custom to treat political offenders as ordinary offenders against the well-being of society are treated, we should not have complained if we were treated like that; but it is not the international custom to do it, and so, for the dignity of the women of the country, and for the sake of the consciences of the men of the country, and for the sake of our nation amongst the nations of the earth, we are not going to allow the Liberal government to treat us like ordinary law-breakers in future."

I said the same thing that night in a great meeting held in Queen's Hall to welcome the released prisoners, and, although we all knew that our determination involved a bitter struggle, our women endorsed it without a moment's hesitation. Had they been able to look forward to the events which were even then overshadowing us, could they have foreseen the new forms of suffering and danger that lay in waiting, I am certain that they would still have done the same thing, for our experiences had taught us to dispense with fear. Whatever of timidity, of shrinking from pain or hardship any of us had originally possessed, it had all vanished. There were no terrors that we were not now ready to face.

The year 1909 marks an important point in our struggle, partly because of this decision of ours, never again to submit to be classed with criminals; and partly because in this year we forced the Liberal Government to go on record, publicly, in regard to the oldest of popular rights, the right of petition. We had long contemplated this step, and now the time seemed ripe for taking it.

In the closing days of 1908 Mr. Asquith, speaking on the policy to be carried out in 1909, commented on the various deputations he was obliged at that time to receive. They called on him, he said, "from all quarters and in all causes, on an average of something like two hours on three days in every week." The deputations all asked for different things, and, although all of the things could not possibly be included in the King's speech, Mr. Asquith was inclined to agree that many of them ought to be included. This declaration from the Prime Minister that he was constantly receiving deputations of men, and listening favourably to their suggestions of what policies to pursue, aroused in the Suffragettes feelings of deep indignation. This in part they expressed on January 25th, when the first meeting of the Cabinet Council took place. A small deputation from the W. S. P. U. proceeded to Downing Street to claim the right to be heard, as men were heard. For knocking at the door of the official residence four of the women, including my sister, Mrs. Clark, were arrested and sent to prison for one month.

A month later the seventh of our Women's Parliaments was called against this and against the fact that no mention of women had been included in the King's speech. Led by Mrs. Pethick Lawrence, Lady Constance Lytton and Miss Daisy Solomon, a deputation of women endeavoured to carry the resolution to the House of Commons. They were promptly arrested and, next day, were sent to prison on sentences of from one to two months. The time was rapidly approaching when the legality of these arrests would have to be tested. In June of the year 1909 the test was made.

It will be remembered that we had endeavoured to force the authorities to make good their threat to charge us under the obsolete Charles II "Tumultuous Petitions Act," which prescribes severe penalties for persons proceeding to Parliament in groups of more than twelve for the purpose of presenting petitions. It had been stated that if we were charged under that act our case would be given a hearing before a judge and jury instead of a police magistrate. Since this was exactly what we desired to have happen we had sent deputation after deputation of more than twelve persons, but always they were tried in police courts, and were sent to prison often for periods as long as that prescribed in the Charles II Act. Now we determined to do something still more ambitious; we resolved to test, not the Charles II Act, but the constitutional right of the subject to petition the Prime Minister as the seat of power.

The right of petition, which has existed in England since the earliest known period, was written into the Bill of Rights which became law in 1689 on the accession of William and Mary. It was, in fact, one of the conditions attaching to the accession of the joint monarchs. According to the Bill of Rights, "It is the right of subjects to petition the King and all commitments, and prosecutions for such petitionings are illegal." The power of the King having passed almost completely into the hands of Parliament, the Prime Minister now stands where the King's majesty stood in former times. Clearly, then, the right of the subject to petition the Prime Minister cannot be legally denied. Thus were we advised, and in order to keep within the strict letter of the law, we accepted the limitations of the right of petition laid down in the Charles II Act, and decided that our petition should be carried to the House of Commons by small groups of women.

Again I called together, on the evening of June 29th, a Parliament of women. Previously I had written to Mr. Asquith stating that a deputation of women would wait on him at the House of Commons at eight o'clock in the evening. I wrote him further that we were not to be refused, as we insisted upon our constitutional right to be received. To my note the Prime Minister returned a formal note declining to receive us. Nevertheless we continued our preparations, because we knew that the Prime Minister would continue to decline, but that in the end he would be forced to receive us.

An incident which occurred a week before the date of the deputation was destined to have important consequences. Miss Wallace Dunlop went to St. Stephen's Hall in the House of Commons, and marked with printer's ink on the stone work of the Hall an extract from the Bill of Rights. The first time she made the attempt she was interrupted by a policeman, but two days later she succeeded in stamping on the ancient walls the reminder to Parliament that women as well as men possess constitutional rights, and that they were proposing to exercise those rights. She was arrested and sentenced to prison for one month, in the third division. The option of a heavy fine was given her, which of course she refused. Miss Wallace Dunlop's prison term began on June 22d. Perhaps her deed had something to do with the unusual interest taken in the approaching deputation, an interest which was shown not only by the public but by many members of Parliament. In the House of Commons a strong feeling that the women ought this time to be received manifested itself in many questions put to the Government. One member even asked leave to move the adjournment of the House on a matter of urgent public importance, namely the danger to the public peace, owing to the refusal of the Prime Minister to receive the deputation. This was denied, however, and the Government mendaciously disclaimed all responsibility for what action the police might take toward the deputation. The Home Secretary, Mr. Gladstone, when asked by Mr. Kier Hardie to give instructions that the deputation, if orderly, should be admitted to St. Stephen's, replied: "I cannot say what action the police ought to take in the matter." Our Women's Parliament met at half past seven on the evening of June 29th, and the petition to the Prime Minister was read and adopted. Then our deputation set forth. Accompanying me as leader were two highly respectable women of advanced years, Mrs. Saul Solomon, whose husband had been Prime Minister at the Cape, and Miss Neligan, one of the foremost of the pioneer educators of England. We three and five other women were preceded by Miss Elsie Howey, who, riding fast, went on horse-back to announce our coming to the enormous crowds that filled the streets. She, we afterward learned, progressed as far as the approaches to the House of Commons before being turned back by the police. As for the deputation, it pressed on through the crowd as far as St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, where we found a long line of police blocking the road. We paused for a moment, gathering strength for the ordeal of trying to push through the lines, when an unexpected thing happened. An order was given from some one, and instantly the police lines parted, leaving a clear space through which we walked towards the House. We were escorted on our way by Inspector Wells, and as we passed the crowd broke into vociferous cheering, firmly believing that we were after all to be received. As for myself I did little speculating as to what was about to happen. I simply led my deputation on as far as the entrance to St. Stephen's Hall. There we encountered another strong force of police commanded by our old acquaintance, Inspector Scantlebury, who stepped forward and handed me a letter. I opened it and read in aloud to the women. "The Prime Minister, for the reasons which he has already given in a written reply to their request, regrets that he is unable to receive the proposed deputation."

I dropped the note to the ground and said: "I stand upon my rights, as a subject of the King, to petition the Prime Minister, and I am firmly resolved to stand here until I am received."

INSPECTOR WELLS CONDUCTING MRS. PANKHURST TO THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS

June, 1908

Inspector Scantlebury turned away and walked rapidly towards the door of the Strangers' Entrance. I turned to Inspector Jarvis, who remained, to several members of Parliament and some newspaper men who stood looking on, and begged them to take my message to the Prime Minister, but no one responded, and the Inspector, seizing my arm, began to push me away. I now knew that the deputation would not be received and that the old miserable business of refusing to leave, of being forced backward, and returning again and again until arrested, would have to be re-enacted. I had to take into account that I was accompanied by two fragile old ladies, who, brave as they were to be there at all, could not possibly endure what I knew must follow. I quickly decided that I should have to force an immediate arrest, so I committed an act of technical assault on the person of Inspector Jarvis, striking him very lightly on the cheek. He said instantly, "I understand why you did that," and I supposed then that we would instantly be taken. But the other police apparently did not grasp the situation, for they began pushing and jostling our women. I said to the inspector: "Shall I have to do it again?" and he said "Yes." So I struck him lightly a second time, and then he ordered the police to make the arrests.

The matter did not end with the arrest of our deputation of eight women. In recurring deputations of twelve the Suffragettes again and again pressed forward in vain endeavour to reach the House of Commons. In spite of the fact that the crowds were friendly and did everything they could to aid the women, their deputations were broken up by the police and many of the women arrested. By nine o'clock Parliament Square was empty, an enormous force of mounted police having beaten the people back into Victoria Street and across Westminster Bridge. For a short time all looked tranquil, but soon little groups of women, seven or eight at a time, kept appearing mysteriously and making spirited dashes toward the House. This extraordinary procedure greatly exasperated the police, who could not unravel the mystery of where the women came from. As a matter of bygone history the explanation is that the W. S. P. U. had hired thirty offices in the neighborhood, in the shelter of which the women waited until it was time for them to sally forth. It was a striking demonstration of the ingenuity of women opposing the physical force of men, but it served still another purpose. It diverted the attention of the police from another demonstration which was going on. Other Suffragettes had gone to the official residence of the First Lord of the Admiralty, to the Home Office, the Treasury and Privy Council Offices, and had registered their contempt for the Government's refusal to receive the deputation by the time-honoured method of breaking a window in each place.

One hundred and eight women were arrested that night, but instead of submitting to arrests and trial, the Women's Social and Political Union announced that they were prepared to prove that the Government and not the women had broken the law in refusing to receive the petition. My case, coupled with that of the Hon. Mrs. Haverfield, was selected as a test case for all the others, and Lord Robert Cecil was retained for the defence. Mr. Muskett, who conducted the case for the prosecution, tried to prove that our women had not gone to the House of Commons to present a petition, but this was easily demonstrated to be an unwarranted claim. The speeches of the leader, the official articles published in our newspaper, Votes for Women, and the letters sent to Mr. Asquith, not to speak of the indisputable facts that every member of the deputation carried a copy of the petition in her hand, furnished evidence enough of the nature of our errand. The whole case of the subject's right of petition was then brought forward for discussion. Mr. Muskett spoke first, then our council, Mr. Henle, then Lord Robert Cecil. Last of all I spoke, describing the events of June 29th. I told the magistrate that should he decide that we and not the Government had been guilty of an infraction of the law, we should refuse to be bound over, but should all choose to go to prison. In that case we should not submit to being treated like criminals. "There are one hundred and eight of us here to-day," I said, pointing to the benches where my fellow-prisoners sat, "and just as we have thought it is our duty to defy the police in the street, so when we get into prison, as we are political prisoners, we shall do our best to bring back into the twentieth century the treatment of political prisoners which was thought right in the case of William Cobbett, and other political offenders of his time."

The magistrate, Sir Albert de Rutzen, an elderly, amiable man, rather bewildered by this unprecedented situation, then gave his decision. He agreed with Mr. Henle and Lord Robert Cecil that the right of petition was clearly guaranteed to every subject, but he thought that when the women were refused permission to enter the House of Commons, and when Mr. Asquith had said that he would not receive them, the women acted wrongly to persist in their demands. He should, therefore, fine them five pounds each, or sentence them to prison for one month in the second division. The sentence would be suspended for the present until learned counsel could obtain a decision from a higher court on the legal point of the right of petition.

I then put in a claim for all the prisoners, and asked that all their cases might be held over until the test case was decided, and this was agreed to, except in regard to fourteen women charged with window-breaking. They were tried separately and sent to prison on sentences varying from six weeks to two months. Of them later.

The appeal against Sir Albert de Rutzen's decision was tried in a Divisional Court early in December of that year. Lord Robert Cecil again appeared for the defence, and in a masterly piece of argumentation, contended that in England there was and always had been the right of petition, and that the right had always been considered a necessary condition of a free country and a civilised Government. The right of petition, he pointed out, had three characteristics: In the first place, it was the right to petition the actual repositories of power; in the second place, it was the right to petition in person; and in the third place, the right must be exercised reasonably. A long list of historical precedents were offered in support of the right to petition in person, but Lord Robert argued that even if these did not exist, the right was admitted in the Charles II "Tumultuous Petitions Act," which provides "That no person or persons whatsoever shall repair to His Majesty or both or either Houses of Parliament upon pretence of presenting or delivering any petition, complaint, remonstrance, or declaration or other address, accompanied with excessive number of people ..." etc. The Bill of Rights had specially confirmed the right of petition in so far as the King personally was concerned. "The women," pursued Lord Robert, "had gone to Parliament Square on June 29th in the exercise of a plain constitutional right, and that in going there with a petition they had acted according to the only constitutional method they possessed, being voteless, for the redress of their grievances."

If then it were true, as contended, the subject not only possessed the right to petition, but to petition in person, the only point to be considered was whether the right had been exercised reasonably. If persons desired to interview the Prime Minister, it was surely reasonable to go to the House of Commons, and to present themselves at the Strangers' Entrance. Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Haverfield and the others had, as the evidence showed, proceeded along the public highway and had been escorted to the door of the House of Commons by an officer of the police, and could not therefore, up to that point, have been acting in an unlawful manner. The police had kept clear a large open space opposite the House of Commons, the crowd being kept at a certain distance away. Within the open space there were only persons having business in the House of Commons, members of the police force and the eight women who formed the deputation. It could not possibly be contended that these eight women had caused an obstruction. It was true that a police officer told them that the Prime Minister was not in the House of Commons, but when one desired an interview with a Member of Parliament one did not make his request of a casual policeman in the street. Moreover, the police did not possess any authority to stop anyone from going into the House of Commons.

The letter given the women, in which the Prime Minister said that he could not or would not see them, had been cited. Now, had the Prime Minister, in his letter, said that he could not or would not see the women at that time, that the time was not convenient; but that he would at some future time, at a more convenient time, receive them, that would have been a sufficient answer. The women would not have been justified in refusing to accept such an answer, because the right to petition must be exercised reasonably. But the letter contained an unqualified refusal, and that, if we allow the right of petition to exist, was no answer at all. Last of all Lord Robert argued that if there is a right to petition a Member of Parliament, then it must be incumbent on the part of a Member of Parliament to receive the petition, and that no one has a right to interfere with the petitioner. If the eight women were legally justified in presenting their petition, then they were also justified in refusing to obey the orders of the police to leave the place.

In an address full of bias, and revealing plainly that he had no accurate knowledge of any of the events that had led up to the case in hand, the Lord Chief Justice delivered judgment. He said that he entirely agreed with Lord Robert Cecil as to the right to present a petition to the Prime Minister, either as Prime Minister or as a Member of Parliament; and he agreed also that petitions to the King should be presented to the Prime Minister. But the claim of the women, he said, was not merely to present a petition, but to be received in a deputation. He did not think it likely that Mr. Asquith would have refused to receive a petition from the women, but his refusal to receive the deputation was not unnatural, "in consequence of what we know did happen on previous occasions."[1]

Referring to the Metropolitan Police Act of 1839, which provides that it shall be lawful for the Commissioner of Police to make regulations and to give instructions to the constable for keeping order, and for preventing any obstruction of thoroughfares in the immediate neighbourhood of the House of Commons, and the Sessional Order empowering the police to keep clear the approaches to the House of Commons, the Lord Chief Justice decided that I and the other women were guilty of an infraction of the law when we insisted on a right to enter the House of Commons. The Lord Chief Justice therefore ruled that our conviction in the lower court had been proper, and our appeal was dismissed with costs.

Thus was destroyed in England the ancient constitutional right of petition, secured to the people by the Bill of Rights, and cherished by uncounted generations of Englishmen. I say the right was destroyed, for of how much value is a petition which cannot be presented in person? The decision of the high court was appalling to the members of the W. S. P. U., as it closed the last approach, by constitutional means, to our enfranchisement. Far from discouraging or disheartening us, it simply spurred us on to new and more aggressive forms of militancy.