Like his father, Sanetsumu SANJO, who had been killed in the Ansei Purge of extremists by the Tokugawa Shogunate, he was one of the court nobles of the Sonno-joi-ha (a group of activists who admired the Emperor and advocated expelling foreigners from Japan) and, in 1862, went to Edo as an imperial envoy to urge the fourteenth Shogun, Iemochi TOKUGAWA, to expel foreigners, and in the same year, he became a member of the Kokuji goyo-gakari, a policy development council.
安政の大獄で処分された父・三条実万と同じく尊皇攘夷(尊攘)派の公家として、文久2年（1862年）に勅使の1人として江戸へ赴き、14代将軍の徳川家茂に攘夷を督促し、この年国事御用掛となった。