The singer Anastasia Robinson (ca.1692-1755), daughter of the portrait painter Thomas Robinson, studied singing under William Croft, Pietro Giuseppe Sandoni and Jonna Maria Lindlheim. She made her operatic debut at London's Queen’s Theatre in the pasticcio (an opera built from pieces of other operas) Creso on 27th January 1714, and became a highly-paid soloist on the London operatic and concert stages between 1714 and 1724. She appeared in numerous Italian operas by Handel, including the 1713–14 revival of Rinaldo (1711) as Almirena, as well as the premieres of Amadigi di Gaula (1715, as Oriana), Radamisto (1720, as Zenobia), Floridante (1721, as Elmira), and Giulio Cesare (1724, as Cornelia), and in operas by other composers, including Domenico Scarlatti’s Narciso (1720), and Giovanni Porta’s Numitore, the premiere of which marked the opening of the Royal Academy of Music in 1720. Some time between 1717 and 1720 Robinson’s voice dropped from soprano to alto.

Although she is said to have married Charles Mordaunt, the 3rd Earl of Peterborough, in secret in 1722, it was not publicly acknowledged by him until 1735, perhaps because of the stigma of marrying a woman who had appeared on the stage. Despite living at Bevois Mount House on the Earl's Southampton estate until her death in 1755, she was not mentioned in his will and was never acknowledged by his children from his first wife, Carey Fraser. Robinson destroyed the earl’s memoirs since they recorded actions: 'as would have reflected very much upon his character’.