Bertram Ashburnham, 5th Earl of Ashburnham

Political activities

The 5th Earl of Ashburnham was a leader of the Carlist cause which aimed to restore the Spanish throne to the descendants of Infante Carlos, Count of Molina. He acted as the British agent and spokesman for the claimant Carlos, Duke of Madrid (known as Don Carlos) and later his son Jaime, Duke of Madrid. He was generally an adherent of Jacobite and Legitimist views, and in 1886 he founded the Order of the White Rose, which became "the main public face of British Legitimism". and started the brief Neo-Jacobite Revival.

Carlist activity increased during the Spanish–American War of 1898 and its aftermath. With the Spanish government weakened by its defeat in the Spanish–American War, the Carlists hoped to depose Alfonso XIII, by force if necessary, and replace him with Don Carlos. Ashburnham gave his opinion that the Spanish Army would not defend the defeated king against the Carlist forces, and that "there will not be a real war, but perhaps a little fighting here and there".

In preparation for the expected hostilities, Ashburnham allowed part of his Welsh estate to be used for military training. Among the recruits who learned to operate a machine gun and rifle and "studied drill, tactics and strategy" was the young Aleister Crowley. Ashburnham bought a yacht, the Firefly, to carry arms and ammunition to the Carlist rebels in Spain in the summer of 1899. It was seized on 17 June at the southern French port of Arcachon carrying a crew of 15 and a cargo of rifles. In early August The Times reported that the vessel had been "allowed to leave on payment of a small deposit" but that the 3,664 rifles it had been carrying had been "detained as security for the fine which may be imposed upon her". Despite Ashburnham's efforts, a Carlist coup d'état did not take place.

Lord Ashburnham was also a supporter of Irish Home Rule. He was a founding member and the first president of the British Home Rule Association, which held its first public meeting in London in 1886, the year of William Ewart Gladstone's unsuccessful First Home Rule Bill. According to his obituary in The Times, the meeting which he chaired was "one of the earliest public meetings ever held in Great Britain to advocate that policy".

Later life, death and succession

After the failure of the Carlist uprising and the death of his wife in 1900, Lord Ashburnham largely withdrew from public life and spent more time at his country properties. Don Jaime, the Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne, was a frequent guest at Ashburnham Place. Lord Ashburnham died in Paris on 15 January 1913. He was succeeded by his youngest and only remaining brother, Thomas, as 6th Earl of Ashburnham, Viscount St. Asaph and Baron Ashburnham.