There were three Cornishmen in succession, more or less known,
who bore the above name. The grandfather, of whom little more is
now ascertainable than that he was Registrar of the Archdeacon of
Cornwall's Court (then held at St. Neot's),[17] that his wife's name
was Mary Smith, and that he died in 1692; his son, the subject of this
notice; and his grandson, who, like the second John Anstis, was also
Garter King of Arms, and who died a bachelor at a comparatively early
age. In Montagu Burrows' 'Worthies of All Souls,' it is stated that
the second Anstis was of founder's kin; yet he failed to secure his
election, notwithstanding a lawsuit instituted for that purpose.
Of the first and the third John Anstis little need be added, but the
second merits a longer notice; for 'in him,' it is said, 'were joined
the learning of Camden and the industry, without the inaccuracy, of
Dugdale.' Born at Luna, on 28th September, 1669, in the parish of St.
Neot's, near Liskeard, about one mile south-west of its interesting
church, he became a member of Exeter College, Oxford, in 1685; and,
having entered at the Middle Temple in 1688, and been appointed
Deputy-General to the Auditors of the Imprest in 1703, and a Principal
Commissioner of Prizes in 1704, was elected, when about thirty years of
age, a member of the first Parliament of Queen Anne, for St. Germans,
and was one of those who opposed the Occasional Conformity Bill; then,
in 1711, member for St. Mawes; and finally member for Launceston in
the first Parliament of George I. (1714-22). His first printed work on
Heraldry seems to have been his (privately printed) 'Curia Militaris,'
or 'Treatise of the Court of Chivalry,' which was published in 1702,
and dedicated to Sir Jonathan Trelawny, the well-known non-juring
Bishop of Exeter. In 1718 John Anstis was created Garter King of
Arms, and six years afterwards he published his 'Annotated Register
of the Most Noble Order of the Garter:' the copy which belonged to
Dean Milles, who was born at Duloe, of which parish he was rector for
forty-two years, is in the London Library.[18] Able and indefatigable
both in and out of office, a voluminous correspondence with Sidney
Godolphin, Sir Hans Sloane, Thomas Hearne the antiquary, and other
distinguished men of the period, as well as similar treatises to
the foregoing, followed from his pen, including his 'Aspilogia,' or
'A Discourse on Seals in England,' and fragments of a 'History of
Cornwall,' etc., as to which copious information is afforded in the
'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis.'
Many of his MSS. are preserved in the Additional, Lansdowne, Harleian,
Sloane, Birch, and Hargrave Collections at the British Museum; his
proposals for publishing a history of the Order of the Garter are
preserved in the Bodleian, whilst others of his numerous writings are
in the libraries of All Souls' and Worcester Colleges, Oxford. He also
wrote a MS. 'History of Launceston,' which, as well as others of his
works, is now believed to be lost; and it may be added that he was
intimately connected with the production of Rymer's 'Fœdera.'
Perhaps the most stirring event of his life was his imprisonment on
the suspicion of a design to restore the Stuart dynasty, the story of
which is as follows. He was a member of the High Church party, and, as
such, opposed what was called the Whig interest, voting, as mentioned
above, against the Occasional Conformity Bill; but, on the information
of one Colonel Paul, he, as well as five or six other members of
Parliament, fell under the suspicion of the Government, and Anstis was
actually in prison at the very time that the office of Garter (which
had been promised to him by Queen Anne) fell vacant. It was with the
utmost difficulty that he cleared himself of these suspicions, and not
until three years afterwards did he obtain the appointment, which had
meanwhile been held by Sir John Vanbrugh, 'Clarenceux.' One of his
fellow-suspects, Edward Harvey, Esq., stabbed himself with his garden
pruning-knife, on a certain paper in his own handwriting being shown to
him. John Anstis is described in the scarce tract which narrates this
affair as being 'Hereditary High Steward of the Tinners of Cornwall,'
and it is probable that in this capacity he may have been suspected
of being concerned in some supposed insurrection in the county. But
imprisonment in those days for like causes was sometimes, if the truth
were told, somewhat of the nature of a political manœuvre.
John Anstis, F.S.A., the subject of this notice, died at his seat
at Mortlake, Surrey, on 4th March, 1744, at a good old age, and his
remains were laid in the family vault at Duloe, near Looe, some three
weeks afterwards. His son at once succeeded (by a reversionary patent)
to his father's post in the Heralds' College; and his remains followed
his father's to their last resting-place in the same quiet churchyard
on the 30th December, 1754. There is a portrait of the more celebrated
Herald in the picture gallery at Oxford, and another at the College of
Arms; and an engraved likeness is prefixed to the Rev. Mark Noble's
history of that institution. There is another engraved portrait of
him, in his tabard, in Nichols' 'Literary Illustrations,' vol. iv. p.
139. He married Elizabeth, the heiress of Richard Cudlipp, Esq., of
Tavistock, and left three sons and three daughters. I believe that,
as in the case of many another distinguished Cornishman, there is
no monument to the memory of even the most celebrated member of the
family. Yet, as a Christian name, the name of Anstis still lingers in
the neighbourhood, and is borne by members of the family of Bewes, the
present representatives through the female line.
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