Page:A catalogue of notable Middle Templars, with brief biographical notices.djvu/25

 ; Judicial Oaths as administered to Heathen Witnesses, and The competence of Colonial Legislatures to enact Laws in derogation of Common Liability or Common Right, are still of interest.



Admitted 31 January, 1689-90.

Son and heir of John Anstis, of St. Neots in Cornwall, where he was born on 28 Sept. 1669. He was called to the Bar 19 May, 1699, to the Bench 8 June 1722, appointed Reader in the following year, and elected Treasurer in 1730.

Being heir to a good fortune, he devoted himself at first to politics, and during the reigns of Queen Anne and George I., represented St. Mawes and Launceston in Parliament. In 1703 he was appointed Deputy-General to the Auditors of the Imprest, and in the following year, one of the Commissioners of Prizes. His distinguished attainments in Heraldry recommended him to Queen Anne, who on the 2 April, 1714, gave him a reversionary patent for the office of Garter King-at-Arms. When the vacancy occurred, however, his claim was disregarded, as he had meanwhile fallen under suspicion of being concerned in plots for the restoration of the Stuarts, and had been imprisoned. Nevertheless, having succeeded in clearing himself of all complicity with Jacobite designs, and having proved the validity of the Queen's patent, on the 20 April, 1718, he was admitted to the office.

He died at his seat at Mortlake, in Surrey, on Sunday, 4 March, 1744, and was buried on the 23rd of the same month, at Duloe, in Cornwall. Of his merits as an heraldric writer, it has been observed that he joined the learning of Camden with the industry, without the inaccuracy, of Dugdale."

His published essays are: Curia Militaris, or a Treatise on the Court of Chivalry, in 3 books (1702), 8vo. [of this work only a fragment, a copy of which is preserved in the British Museum, is known to exist]; Letters to a Peer, concerning the Honour of Earl Marshal (a fragment printed in 1706); The Form of the Installation of the Garter (1720), 8vo; Brook's Errors of Camden (1724); The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, usually called the Black Book, with Specimen of the Lives of the Knights Companions (1724); Observations introductory to an Historical Essay on the Knighthood of the Bath (1725).

Besides these he is the author of several detached pieces, and of some curious works in MS.



Admitted 16 October, 1730.

Son and heir of (q.v.). He was a gentleman-commoner of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and in 1727 became associated with his father in the office of Garter King-at-Arms. He was called to the Bar 29 Oct. 1731, and to the Bench of the Inn 14 April, 1749. He had been elected F.S.A. in 1736. He was Reader at the Inn in 1753, and died the following year (5 Dec.).



Admitted 11 November, 1840.

Third son of the Hon. Samuel George William Archibald, LL.D., Attorney-General of Nova Scotia, where he was born in 1817. At the Temple he was a pupil of Serjeant Petersdorff, whom he assisted in his well-known Abridgment. He was called to the Bar 30 Jan. 1852, and in 1868 became Junior Counsel to the Treasury. In 1872 he succeeded (q.v.) as a