Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 25 - Arthur Henry Kenney
Rev. Arthur Henry Kenney, D.D. (styled in 1842 Rector of St. Olave’s, Southwark, formerly Dean of Achonry, and Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin), is known as the biographer of Archbishop Magee. He ought, probably, to be included among the descendants of Huguenot refugees. One reason for this conjecture is, that a well-represented family surnamed Kenny, has already been so honoured, on the authority of Burke’s Dictionary of Landed Gentry. Another reason is that Dr Kenney is the author of a volume which contains a readable digest of Claude’s Pamphlet on the Persecution in France, and of the controversy between Bossuet and the Huguenots, in which Archbishop Wake so ably and gallantly wielded his pen. This volume was published in 1827, with the title “Facts and Documents illustrating the history of the period immediately preceding the accession of William III., referring particularly to Religion in England and France, and bearing on recent events.” With the view of showing his desire that the law for the political emancipation of the Romanists in the United Kingdom should have a fair trial, he soon withdrew this volume from circulation; but he re-issued it in 1839 with a new title, “The Dangerous Nature of Popish Power in these countries, especially as illustrated from awful records of the time of James the Second.” The following is Dr Kenney’s note regarding the burning of Claude’s pamphlet:—
“A general denial of the truth of Claude’s narrative was published by order of Louis XIV.; but no proof was brought to invalidate it, while it was attested by such a multitude of concurrent witnesses, and confirmed by such various and unquestionable circumstantial evidence. According to a requisition which the French Ambassador, by command of Louis, presented to King James’s government, a copy of the English translation of Claude’s narrative was burned by the hangman, and an order was issued for the suppression of the book. But the Romish method of refuting a book by committing it to the flames, or ordering it to be suppressed, was but an unfortunate kind of argument against the truth of a narrative established by so many decisive proofs.”
Dr Kenney died at Boulogne on 27th January 1855, aged seventy- eight.