In so far as his control over the navy was concerned, the reign of Charles I. came to an end with the appointment of the Earl of Warwick as vice-admiral by the authority of the Parliament in defiance of his wishes. From that time forward the fleet became a docile instrument in the hands of his enemies, and so remained throughout the whole of the first Civil War. The king did indeed dismiss Northumberland from his post as Lord High Admiral, and the order was obeyed. It may very well be that the Parliament was not sorry to be rid of an officer whose powers were so great. Even in the midst of armed rebellion the Englishmen of the seventeenth century were great sticklers for the letter of the law, and the Lord High Admiral, the legality of whose appointment could not be questioned, might have caused the Houses at Westminster considerable trouble if he had thought fit to act against them, or even only to abstain from acting energetically on their behalf. With the minor officers there was not the same probability of trouble. The king did order them to render no obedience to Parliament, and a few acted on his command. Others, however, had no scruple in accepting the doctrine that the order of the king meant his order as expressed by Parliament--a convenient sophistry by which many men at that period contrived to reconcile the reality of rebellion with the profession of loyalty. Among those who actively assisted Parliament to obtain possession of the fleet was William Batten, the Surveyor of the Navy. He is described by Clarendon as an "obscure fellow," who obtained his post by dint of a bribe. This account of him has been somewhat heatedly contradicted by modern writers. But it agrees very well with the rather off-hand account of his appointment given by Northumberland. If Batten belonged to the Somersetshire family of that name, he was a man of strong Puritan connections. However that may be, he had passed his life as a merchant skipper, trading on his own account, or as master in the navy, till he became Surveyor in 1638, when the Commission of 1628 was dissolved and Northumberland was appointed Lord High Admiral. There is a pretty general agreement of authorities that he paid for his post, which at that time does not necessarily mean that there was anything corrupt about his nomination. His assistance had a good deal to do with Warwick's success in bringing the fleet to obedience in July 1642.