Emily Wilding Davison at Epsom Downs

Emily Wilding Davison was a campaigner for women's suffrage in the U.K. She was arrested many times, went on seven hunger strikes and was force fed in prison. She had studied the classics and medieval literature as part of her education and was inspired by the Amazon women in Chaucer's The Knights' Tale. According to a classmate, she took on the name 'Fair Emelye' after reading the Canterbury Tales at school.

Emily Wilding Davison

In the Knights' Tale, Chaucer describes how Emelye was captured along with her sister Queen Hippolyta when Theseus laid seige to Scythia, home of the powerful Amazon women.

Terracotta lekythos (oil flask) with scenes of a battle of Greeks against Amazons (detail), ca. 420 B.C., Greek, attributed to the Eretria Painter. Terracotta. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1931

In the opening of the tale, the triumphant lord Theseus arrives at the city of Thebes. Rows of ladies clothed in black kneel before him in the street, wailing and lamenting for their husbands who were killed in an attack on the city by Creon. Theseus, expecting a hero's welcome is shocked by their behavior and goes to dismiss them. But then one of the women caught the reins of his bridle, and he was compelled to hear their grievances.

Horse's bridle and reins, By Thowra_uk - Arabian head, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2940415

Many years later, after years of fruitless protest, fearing death at the hands of police, which could be made to look accidental, suffragist Emily goes to the racecourse for the Epsom Derby, a huge annual social event where the king and queen will be present, and commoners are also welcome. She finds a front row spot against the rails at Tattenham Corner, and when the King's horse approaches, she ducks under the railing and attempts to catch his bridle. The horse and jockey fall, but are relatively uninjured. Emily dies.

Emily Wilding Davison at Epsom Downs, original painting by Echoing Multiverse. Available for purchase through Saatchi Art. Prints and other merch available via Redbubble or Fine Art America.

Immediately after the incident, the newspaper in her hometown of Morpeth reported that she "offered up her life as a Petition to the King...Her petition will not fail, for she herself has carried it to that High Tribunal where men and women, rich and poor, stand equal."

Primary Source: Ramirez, Janina, 2023. Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages, Through the Women Written Out of It. Hanover Square Press.

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