[5] The father of Rafael, Felix Díaz Aguado Pérez (born 1834),[6] served in artillery as well;[7] gained honors and promotions for gallant performance during the war in Morocco in 1858-1860[8] before in 1867 and already as comandante he joined Carlist conspiracy in the Pamplona garrison.

Félix Díaz Aguado concluded that followers of the claimant Don Carlos "persisted in error"[34] and protested against the injustice suffered by Ramón Nocedal, leader of the rebels who soon became secessionists.

[36] Dring his tenure the Philippine revolution started, with ensuing war; not limiting himself to raising patriotic spirits on newspaper pages, Díaz Aguado co-organized the local Junta de Socorro, set up to assist the Spanish soldiers wounded in the archipelago.

Noted in Congregación y Circulo de San Luis Gonzaga, a conservative cultural outpost,[43] he was also busy co-organizing massive pilgrimage to Rome[44] and took part in Catholic congresses in Burgos in 1899 and in Santiago in 1902.

Reportedly it was thanks to his belligerent harangues that politicians like Salmerón demanded that Círculo San Gonzaga be closed as a centre of subversive propaganda;[48] in discussion centers like the Madrid Ateneo he clashed with Liberal speakers and personalities like Canalejas recognized him as leader of "juventud reaccionaria, pero animosa, vibrante y con fe en un ideal".

Following a brief campaign Díaz Aguado lost to the increasingly popular writer and militant republican Vicente Blasco Ibáñez; his final result is not known, yet partial data suggests he was not far behind the front-runner.

[57] In the subsequent campaign of 1910, he again presented his candidature in Tolosa, where this time no-one dared to challenge the Carlist contender; he was declared victorious with no voting taking place and according to the notorious Article 29 of the electoral legislation.

As the Carlist contingent remained a minoritarian if not marginal faction in the diet his room for maneuvering was limited, yet he used to take the floor willingly,[61] allegedly recognized as an eloquent and cultivated debater.

[63] The political agenda of Díaz Aguado did not differ from the standard Carlist program: he opposed centralization efforts[64] and championed separate local establishments[65] or confronted secularization drive and espoused the Church,[66] though was involved also in other issues like development of credit and insurance.

[67] He reached top echelons in the party structures; apart from touring the country and speaking at various rallies, in the early 1910s he was nominated to Junta Superior Central, the nationwide Carlist political executive.

[69] It seems that in the late 1910s, during mounting conflict between the new claimant Don Jaime and key party theorist Juan Vázquez de Mella, Díaz Aguado did not take sides.

He remained involved in business, as in the late Restoration period he was engaged in savings and insurance industry; he entered the board of Sociedad de Ahorro y Previsión La Mundial[76] and for a few years featured in its adverts.

[79] Díaz Aguado resumed his Carlist activities shortly after the fall of Primo de Rivera, taking advantage of political thaw of the Dictablanda (soft dictatorship).

[80] In the summer and fall his propaganda engagements got increasingly frequent, as he spoke in closed-door meetings and open rallies in Madrid[81] but also in Vascongadas[82] or Catalonia,[83] often seated next to party heavyweights like its Jefé Delegado marqués de Villores.

[84] Since campaign prior to local elections gained momentum in early 1931, Díaz Aguado threw himself into monarchist and Right-wing propaganda;[85] as pro-Republican feelings were running high he did not hesitate to pronounce that if indeed a republic was to triumph, it "would be a parenthesis, a meteor, an ephemerical being.

However, the Jaimista electoral partners from PNV required candidates running in Vascongadas to be Basques[88] excluding Díaz Aguado, who eventually stood in Valencia and lost miserably.

[95] In 1934 Diaz Aguado returned to the Madrid Carlist executive, nominated president of Círculo Tradicionalista in the capital;[96] he brought with himself at least two older sons, as Jaime[97] and Rafael[98] appeared on the party membership rolls.

[104] The detention might have been related to his role in Socorro Blanco, an underground Carlist relief and mutual assistance organisation active in Republican Madrid; according to later press notes he headed the group after its original leader, Pascual Cebollada, was arrested.