[1] He fought as an officer for the Royalist cause in the Civil War and in 1644 was governor of Weymouth, a place he kept four months for King Charles.
[2][3] Ten years later, on 3 June 1654, he was arrested and examined on the charge of complicity in the plot to murder the Protector Oliver Cromwell for which Gerard and Vowel afterwards suffered.
He was frequently a fellow-guest and a sharer in treasury business with Pepys, who styles him an "experienced man and a cavalier".
His "odd stories" are duly noted, and there was one touching the lease of Ashburnham House from the dean and chapter of Westminster, wherein the "devilish covetousness" of Dr. Busby was commemorated.
[4] Ashburnham had married a wealthy widow, Jane, daughter of John Boteler, 1st Baron Boteler of Brantfield and the widow of James Ley, 1st Earl of Marlborough who had died in 1629; she brought landholdings including an estate at Tidworth, near Ludgershall.