Attending
Eton College (as a
King's Scholar) and then
Christ Church, Oxford (graduating BA in 1697),
William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire (a friend of his father) introduced him at court and he received a knighthood in 1699 for the Latin oration he had made to
William III on his entry to Oxford the previous year (a task he had been selected for by Christ Church's dean
Henry Aldrich). When shortly afterwards
Lord Macclesfield took the
Act of Settlement to the
elector of Hanover in 1701, the younger Andrew Fountaine accompanied him and thus became known in the courts of Europe in what became the first of his two
grand tours. He was in correspondence with
Gottfried Leibniz between 1701 and 1704, was admitted to the
Royal Society of Berlin, became friends with
Cosimo III de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany on travelling to Italy in 1702, and was part of the mission to the
States General of the
Dutch Republic in 1705 (using it as an opportunity to add to his book and coin collections). On his father's death in 1707, he was appointed
Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod for Ireland and, while accompanying
Thomas Herbert, 8th Earl of Pembroke to open the Irish parliament, became friends with
Jonathan Swift (as is mentioned in Swift's letters and his
Journal to Stella). He took a second grand tour in 1714, collecting maiolica, paintings and sculpture for himself and for the Earls of Pembroke (he later catalogued the 8th Earl's collection for his son the
9th earl). He succeeded
Walter Cary as
warden of the Royal Mint 12 August 1727, but retired from London in 1732 or 1733 to redesign the family seat of
Narford Hall (working with the professional architect
Roger Morris). At Narford he hung a portrait of his patroness
Caroline of Ansbach on the staircase (she had made him her vice-chamberlain and tutor to her third son,
William Augustus, and was William's proxy for his installation as
Knight of the Bath on 17 June 1725). He died unmarried in
Narford in 1753, and was buried there. When sold and dispersed in 1884, his collection was so large it took four days to auction. His Narford estate passed to his sister Elizabeth and down to her grandson Brigg Price, who changed his surname to Fountaine and adopted his great-uncle's arms by a
private act of Parliament, ''''
(5 Geo. 3. c. 55'' ). ==Portrait miniatures collection==