ASHBURNHAM, JOHN (c. 1603-1671), English Royalist, son of Sir John Ashburnham, entered parliament as member for Hastings in 1629, and sat for the same borough in the Long Parlia ment. He was treasurer of the royal army during the Civil War, commissioner in the Uxbridge negotiations (5644), escaped with Charles to the Scots from Oxford , and then went abroad, being employed by Charles at the court of the Prince of Orange. After the seizure of Charles by the army, Ashburnham joined him at Hampton Court in 1647. When Charles escaped from Hamp ton Court on Nov. I 1, he followed Ashburnham's advice in oppo sition to that of Sir John Berkeley, who urged the king to go abroad, and took refuge in the Isle of Wight, being placed by Ashburnham in the hands of Robert Hammond, the governor. "Oh, Jack," the king exclaimed when he understood the situation, "thou hast undone me!" when Ashburnham, "falling into a great passion of weeping, offered to go and kill Hammond." By this fatal step Ashburnham incurred the unmerited charge of treach ery and disloyalty. Clarendon, however, who censures his con duct, absolves him from any crime except that of folly and ex cessive self-confidence, and he was acquitted both by Charles I. and Charles II. He was separated with Berkeley from Charles on Jan. I, 1648, waited on the mainland in expectation of Charles's escape, and was afterwards taken and imprisoned at Windsor, and exchanged during the second Civil War for Sir W. Masham and other prisoners. He was specially exempted from pardon in the Treaty of Newport. In November he was allowed to com pound for his estates, and declared himself willing to take the covenant. After the king's death he remained in England, an object of suspicion to all parties, corresponded with Charles II., and underwent several terms of imprisonment in the Tower and in Guernsey. At the Restoration he was reinstated in his former place of groom of the bedchamber and was compensated for his losses. He represented Sussex in parliament from 1661 till his expulsion, in 1667, for taking a bribe of £500 from French mer chants for landing their wines. He died on June 15, 1671.
A descendant of his, Bertram the 4th earl, was the collector of the famous Ashburnham library, which was dis persed in 1883 and 1884.
A Letter from Mr. Ashburnham to a Friend, defending John Ash burnham's conduct with regard to the king, was published in 1648. His longer Narrative was published in 1830 by George, 3rd earl of Ashburnham (the latter's championship of his ancestor, however, being entirely uncritical and unconvincing) ; A Letter to W. Lenthall (1647) repudiates the charge brought against the king of violating his parole (Thomason Tracts, Brit. Museum, E 418 [4]) .