and brothers to obtain political liberty; in a word, they were working for men and not for themselves, and this made an immense difference in the judgment meted out to them. However, it is quite clear that even as long ago as 1819 the notion that women have nothing to do with politics was in practice rejected by the political common-sense of Englishmen. No one doubted that women were, and ought to be, deeply interested in what concerned the political well-being of their country.
Some political antiquarians in this country have expressed their conviction that in early times when the institution of feudalism was the strongest political force in England, women exercised electoral rights in those cases where they were entitled as landowners or as freewomen of certain towns to do so.[1] This view has been combated by other authorities, and has not been accepted in the law courts, where special emphasis has been laid on the fact that no authentic case of a woman having actually cast a vote, as of right, in a Parliamentary election can be produced. The claim that in ancient times women did exercise the franchise, whether capable of being established or not, certainly does not deserve to be dismissed as in itself absurd and incredible. I believe it has been called by some anti-suffragists "an impudent imposture," in the most approved style of the "what-I-know-not-is-not-knowledge" pedant. Whatever it may be, it is not this. In a book published in 1911,[2] there is a passage which goes far to prove that even as late as 1807 the right of women possessing the necessary legal qualification to vote in Parliamentary elections was recognised as being in existence. One of the Spencer Stanhopes was a candidate during the general election of 1807,
- ↑ This view has also been supported in France, see Le vote des Femmes, by Ferdinand Buisson, for evidence of women having in ancient times voted and sat in the Parlements of France. Taine also mentions the Countess of Perigord sitting in the États of her province prior to the Revolution (Les Origines de la France Contemporaire, par H. Taine, vol. i. p. 104).
- ↑ Annals of a Yorkshire House, vol. ii. p. 319.
