The Women's Social and Political Union had long realised this, and when the third Women's Parliament met in the Caxton Hall on February 11th, 1908, it did so with all the splendid courage and enthusiasm for militant action that had characterised its predecessors. It was now known that an excellent place in the private Members ballot had been won, and on the Women's Bill, by Mr. Stanger, a Liberal, and it was realised that before February 28th, when the Bill was to come up for second reading, strong pressure must be brought to bear upon the Government to prevent this Bill being wrecked as that of Mr. Dickinson had been in the previous year. It was therefore with an added sense of immediate pressing necessity that the women set out unflinchingly for the old hard fight with overwhelming force. The motion to carry the usual resolution to the Prime Minister was moved by Miss Marie Naylor and Miss Florence Haig both London Members of the Union and both Chelsea portrait painters, and then the whole Hall seemed to rock with the noise of the cheers as the majority of the women present sprang up to form a deputation.
Meanwhile an extraordinary scene had taken place close to the Strangers' Entrance to the House of Commons. It had been anticipated, of course, that the Suffragettes would make an attempt to lay their Resolution before the Prime Minister and a great force of Police was massed in readiness before the House. Just about four o'clock as the long lines of men in their dark-blue uniform waited there, two furniture removal vans slowly approached, coming up Victoria Street and round by the green which surrounds the Abbey and St. Margaret's Church, as though they were about to make their way past the House of Commons and along Millbank towards the Tate Gallery and Westminster Embankment. The first van went slowly by the House, the second crawled leisurely in its wake and along the back ledge of the second van lay a sleepy-looking boy, his eyes idly fixed upon a little man sauntering along the pavement some distance away. Just as this van was passing the Strangers' Entrance the little man dropped a handkerchief, then suddenly the boy sprang from the ledge, the back doors of the van flew open wide, and one-and-twenty women plunged out and made a rush for the House of Commons. They were blinded by the broad daylight after their long ride in the darkness of the van, and as they jumped, many of them fell on their knees and groping helplessly, ran the wrong way. Nevertheless there were some who headed straight for the doorway and two of them managed to get inside, only to be flung back instantly, whilst the police closed round and several arrests were made.
Meanwhile the body of women who had engaged to carry the Resolution to the Prime Minister, had emerged from the Caxton Hall, and having formed up four abreast in orderly procession, had begun to move quietly forward towards the House of Commons. Large crowds had gathered to see them whilst the police were drawn up on either side of the road, and at one point formed a line across the thoroughfare. The constables pushed and jostled the women for some time without altogether preventing their passage, but at Broad Sanctuary, a large contingent of police entirely blocked the way. Undaunted, the women pressed forward, and the crowds, some with the idea of helping the Suffragettes, others from curiosity, pressed forward too. The police charged again and again, and there was grave danger that someone would be trampled under foot. When at last the streets were cleared, it was found that some fifty women had been arrested, amongst these Miss Marie Naylor and Miss Florence Haig, Georgina and Marie Brackenbury, both of them painters, and nieces of General Sir Henry Brackenbury, and Miss Maud Joachim, niece of the great violinist.
The Suffragette cases came on next morning before Mr. Horace Smith at the Westminster Police Court, Mr. Muskett, who prosecuted on behalf of the police, then announced that on this occasion the authorities had decided as before to prosecute under the Prevention of Crimes Amendment Act of 1885, which enabled the Magistrate to inflict a fine of £5 or, in default, to order imprisonment with or without hard labour for two months. Throwing down a remarkable challenge to the women, he added that there were greater and stronger powers in reserve which could be enforced to put down disorder, for there was still upon the Statute Book an Act passed in the reign of Charles II which dealt with "Tumultuous Petitions either to the Crown or Parliament." He recalled the fact that it had been stated by the judge at the time of the Lord George Gordon riots that that Act was still good law, and, he said, that the dictum still applied. The Act of Charles II provided that
No person whatever shall repair to His Majesty or both or either of the Houses of Parliament upon pretence of presenting or delivering any petition, complaint, remonstrance or declaration or other address accompanied with an excessive number of people, nor at any one time with above the number of twelve persons.
Penalties might be enforced under this Act up to a fine of £100 or three months' imprisonment. In holding forth this threat to women who might demonstrate in the future, Mr. Muskett again appealed to the Magistrate to deal with those who were now charged with all the rigour which he would apply to ordinary law-breakers.
The prisoners were then one by one brought in. Georgina Brackenbury, tall, fair, and well featured, was the first to be put into the dock. The Magistrate affected to take scant interest in the case, and in spite of her own splendid courtesy of manner, addressed her with pettish rudeness, and finally interrupted her statement with "That is all nonsense." The whole of the proceedings were conducted in the same spirit. But two women out of the fifty had been imprisoned before, and these two, Mrs. Rigby, the wife of a doctor in Preston, and Mrs. Titterington, as "old offenders," were ordered either to pay fines of £5 or to suffer one month's imprisonment in the third and lowest class. The other forty-seven women were ordered to be bound over in two sureties of £20 to keep the peace for twelve months or to serve six weeks' imprisonment in the second Division. With the exception of two, whose absence from home was found to be impossible owing to the serious illness of relatives, all the women chose imprisonment.
All these things were of course largely discussed in the Press. The furniture van incident attracted the greatest attention, and the van itself was likened by almost every newspaper to the wooden horse of Troy. The Daily Chronicle said:
The Suffragettes are essentially heroic. First they lash themselves to the Premier's railings; now borrowing an idea from the Trojan horse, they burst forth from a pantechnicon van.... A high standard of artifice has been set and it should be maintained. The Trojan horse would have been of no use if it had remained outside the walls, and though curiosity could never be expected to prompt Members to drag a deserted pantechnicon into the House, there must be occasions when a large-sized packing case is taken into St. Stephen's.
The Glasgow Evening Times called for a poet of Hudibrastic gifts to rise and embody in heroic verse the deeds of the Suffragettes, and asserted that "The daring attack yesterday evening on that citadel of democratic liberty, the House of Commons, is of itself sufficient to inspire a Homer, or at least a Peter Pindar." The Evening News said that until the Suffragettes had outwitted the policemen by the use of the furniture van, they had never believed in the story of the Trojan horse, now they knew it to be quite possible after all.