Legitimist Jacobite League of Great Britain and Ireland

[7] In 1891, unable to persuade Ashburnham of the merits of taking a political stance, key members of the Order left to form a new society, the grandly-titled Legitimist Jacobite League of Great Britain and Ireland, led by Vivian, Erskine and Melville Henry Massue.

In late 1892, the League applied to the government for permission to lay wreaths at the statue of Charles I at Charing Cross on the anniversary of his execution.

A question was asked in Parliament about this refusal, with Akers Douglas replying that: "on the 30th January last our late revered Sovereign was lying dead, and the special circumstances of this case seemed to require that, for this occasion, on grounds of good taste and feeling, the customary decoration should not take place"[14] Massue was President of the League in 1893, 1894 and 1897.

[citation needed] In 1914, just after the start of the First World War, Prince Rupprecht appeared in German uniform in support of The Kaiser.

[5] The League's principals and beliefs are well summarised in this quote from the 1910 Legitimist Kalendar: The raison d'etre for the Jacobite party today is the maintenance of the principle of the hereditary as opposed to the parliamentary right to the throne of these realms.

There is still a Representative of the elder line living, and every day shows more and more clearly how now, when socialistic and revolutionary doctrines threaten to overthrow all law and order, it is necessary for the Sovereign to have some higher title to the throne than a mere paper one that can be torn to shreds at any moment.

It is in order to teach the nation where to look for the Sovereign whose claim to govern is derived from God alone, and to instill into men's minds a little of that spirit of loyalty and chivalry which animated the hearts of so many good and brave men and women in the past, to oppose the false and impractical ideas of liberty and equality... that the Jacobite party exists todayThe League published a number of books and newspapers, either directly or through its members.