Champney, Anthony, controversialist, born in England c. 1569; died there c. 1643. He studied at Reims (1590) and Rome (1593). As priest he was imprisoned at Wisbech, and was active against the Jesuits, acting later for the Appellant Clergy in Rome (1602). Afterwards he was appointed president of the English College of Arras near Paris, becoming doctor of theology. and Fellow of the Sorbonne. He was vice-president of Douai College, from 1619 to 1625, and from 1628 till he returned to England, where he died some time after 1643. He published: “An Answer to a Letter of a Jesuited Gentleman” (1601); “A Manual of Controversies” (1614); “A Treatise of ‘the Vocation of Bishops” (1616); “Mr. Pilkington his Parallela Disparalled” (1620); “An Answer to a Pamphlet (by D. Featley) intituled, ‘The Fisher catched in his owne Net” (1623); ‘A’ Defence of the Appendix to the Antidote” (before 1624); “Legatum Fratribus suis Cleri Anglicani Sacerdotibus Testamento relictum” (in Bishop Smith’s ‘Monita”). His “ History of Queen Elizabeth” is still in manuscript. Formerly, as stated by Gillow, Cooper, Knox, etc., it was preserved in the archives of the Old Chapter, ‘put since 1879 has been restored to Westminster Archives, to which it belonged ; there are also some other works in manuscript.
Dopp, Church History (London, 1737), III, 81; MSS. in British Museum, Addit. MSS., 18393, 18394; ‘Gillow, Bibl. Dict. Eng. Cath., I, 462; Cooper in Dict. Nat. Biog., X, "35.
Edwin Burton.