Heathens, of Christians, London, 1698, 8vo, written by Sir Henry Spelman in 1632, but omitted from the edition of that author's Posthumous Works. Chaplain to Bishop Gardiner Kennett was now chaplain to Bishop Gardiner of Lincoln, and on 15 May 1701 became archdeacon of Huntingdon. Thereupon he entered into a controversy with Francis Atterbury about the rights of Convocation, and ably supported Dr Wake and Edmund Gibson in their contention that convocation had few inherent rights of independent action. In Warburton's view, Kennett's arguments were based on precedents, while Atterbury's rested on principles. On Archbishop Tenison's recommendation he was appointed in 1701 one of the original members of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. In a sermon preached in his parish church of Aldgate on 31 January 1703–4, the fast day for the martyrdom of Charles I, Kennett acknowledged that there had been some errors in his reign, owing to a 'popish' queen and a corrupt ministry, whose policy tended in the direction of an absolute tyranny. To correct exaggerated statements made about this sermon, Kennett printed it under the title of A Compassionate Enquiry into the Causes of the Civil War, London (three editions), 1704, 4to. It elicited many angry replies from his high-church opponents. In 1704 he published The Case of Impropriations, and of the Augmentation of Vicarages, and other insufficient Cures, stated by History and Law, from the first Usurpations of the Popes and Monks, to her Majesty's Royal Bounty lately extended to the poorer Clergy of the Church of England. A copy of this work, bound in two vols., with copious additions by the author, was formerly in the possession of Richard Gough, and is now in the Bodleian Library. In 1705 some booksellers undertook a collection of the best works on English history down to the reign of Charles II, and induced Kennett to write a continuation to the time of Queen Anne. Although it appeared anonymously as the third volume of the Compleat History of England, 1706, fol., the author's name soon became known, and he was exposed to renewed attacks from his Jacobite enemies. A new edition, with corrections, was published in 1719, but it was not until 1740 that there appeared Roger North's Examen, or an Inquiry into the Credit and Veracity of a pretended Complete History, viz. Dr. White Kennett's "History of England". His popularity at