LADY CONSTANCE LYTTON

&lsquo,Does full justice to the remarkable achievements of an , unlikely martyr&rsquo, Mail on Sunday  , &lsquo,A fascinating study of a handful of the potential motivations , behind violent political acts through the balanced examination of , a remarkable woman&rsquo, All About History  , Lady Constance Lytton (1869&ndash,1923) was the most unlikely of suffragettes. One of the elite, she was the daughter of a Viceroy of India and a lady in waiting to the Queen. She grew up in the family home of Knebworth and in embassies around the world. For forty years, she did nothing but devote herself to her family, denying herself the love of her life and possible careers as a musician or a reviewer. Then came a chance encounter with a suffragette. Constance was intrigued, witnessing Emmeline and Christabel Pankhurst on trial convinced her of the urgent necessity of votes for women and she went to prison for the cause as gleefully as any child going on a school trip. But, once jailed, Constance soon found that her name and her connections singled her out for unwelcome special treatment. By now, 1909, the suffragettes were hunger striking and the government had retaliated with force-feeding. The stories that began to leak out of bungled operations, of dirty tubes, of screams halfheard through brick walls, of straitjackets and handcuffs outraged the suffragettes. Constance decided on her most radical step yet