JUNE 29th.
BILL OF RIGHTS
It is the right of the Subject to petition the King and all commitments and Prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal.
Miss Wallace Dunlop was taken to the police Inspector's office opening out of the Palace Yard, but, after an impression of her notice had been solemnly made on a sheet of blotting paper, she was allowed to go. She had been pulled away too speedily to look at her own handiwork in St. Stephen's Hall, and the policemen told her that it was "only a smudge." Two days later, therefore, she set out to make a second attempt to stamp on the wall of St. Stephen's her reminder to Parliament that the people's liberties must not be violated. She was able to carefully affix her notice before a policeman appeared, but she was not to be let off this time. On June 22nd she was tried for wilfully and maliciously damaging the stone-work of the House of Commons. She urged in her defence that any damage which she had caused by affixing the notice was entirely outweighed by the great constitutional issue which it had been her intention to impress upon the Members of the House of Commons. "It is claimed by the prosecution," she said, "that it cost ten shillings to erase the impression of the first notice and that it will cost probably a similar sum to wipe out the second. It seems to me that it would have been better if the authorities had spent no money at all but had let the impression stay." She was found guilty and ordered either to pay a fine of £5 and £1. 1. 2 damages or in default to undergo one month's imprisonment in the third division without hard labour.
Meanwhile very great interest had been aroused in the attempt of the Suffragettes to force the Prime Minister to receive them by Constitutional means. There was keen discussion as to what would happen and, when the fateful Tuesday came, vast throngs of people, greater perhaps than at any other demonstration, lined the streets in the neighbourhood of Parliament. In the House of Commons itself there was a strong feeling that the deputation should be received and this was expressed at question time by many Members. Mr. Keir Hardie asked the Speaker whether it was by his instructions that a deputation of eight or nine ladies was to be prohibited from entering the House, but Mr. Speaker replied that this was the first he had heard of it and that he had issued no instructions. When the same question was put to the Home Secretary he also answered, "I gave no instructions," and declared that it was the police who had the responsibility of keeping the approaches of the House open. Mr. Hugh Law asked leave to move the adjournment of the House on a matter of urgent public importance, namely, the refusal of the Prime Minister to receive the deputation and the consequent grave and immediate danger to the public peace, but the Speaker refused, saying that the question had been before the House for at least two years. Mr. Keir Hardie then asked if the Home Secretary would give instructions that so long as the deputation was orderly it should be admitted to St. Stephen's but Mr. Gladstone refused to accept responsibility, saying, "I cannot say what action will be right or wrong for the police to take."
Christabel waving to the hunger strikers from a house overlooking the prison, July, 1909
At half past seven the Women's Parliament met and a Petition to the Prime Minister having been adopted Mrs. Pankhurst, Mrs. Saul Solomon of South Africa, Miss Neligan who from 1874 to 1901 had been head mistress of the Croydon Girls' School and was now 76, and five other women were duly appointed to present it straightway. Then Miss Vera Holme was dispatched on horseback with an advance letter announcing that the deputation was about to appear. With all possible speed she rode on, forging her way through the masses of people, until, close to the House itself, she was met by a body of mounted police, who demanded her business. She handed the letter for Mr. Asquith to the Inspector but he merely flung it on the ground where it was lost to sight amongst the crowd.[35]
Meanwhile the little deputation of eight women were preparing to leave the Caxton Hall and the Women's Drum and Fife Band ranged up the steps was playing out to them the Marseillaise. The shrill, shrill notes of the fife, were a call to battle, the heart beat quicker in unison with that drumming and the breath came hard and short. On the deputation went whilst the cheers of their comrades mingled with the deeper answering cheer of the crowd outside. On they went up Victoria Street and all the way from the masses who watched them was heard no single cry against them, nothing but one great cheer. They pressed on, first Mrs. Pankhurst in her light coat, then the two little old ladies and the other women following behind, but just at the corner of St. Margaret's Church a long line of police on horse and foot blocked the road. For a moment there was a strange pause and the crowd was hushed. Then the police lines opened and the deputation passed through to the clear space around the House. The crowd cheered and they were lost to sight.
Everyone believed that the women were to be received. But St. Stephen's was closely guarded by police and, as the deputation reached it, Chief Inspector Scantlebury stepped forward and handed a letter to Mrs. Pankhurst. She opened it and read aloud: "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." Then she let the missive fall to the ground and said, "I stand upon my right as a subject of the King to petition the Prime Minister. I am firmly resolved to stand here until I am received," but, even whilst she was speaking, Inspector Scantlebury turned away—he would not wait to hear her statement. She called to him to stay and pleaded with the by-standers, Members of Parliament and others, to bring him back to listen but he disappeared through the door of the Stranger's Entrance.