Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/424

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Batten
418
Batten

cation at Peterhouse, Cambridge (B.A., 1669; M.A., 1673; D.D., comitiis regiis, 1705). He became rector of St. Peter's Church, Canterbury, and of Edworth, Bedfordshire; subdean of the Chapel Royal; sub-almoner to Queen Anne; and prebendary of Worcester (1680). He died on 20 March 1712–13, and was buried in the cemetery of All Saints', Hertford. There is a mezzotint engraving of him by J. Simon from a painting by Dahl.

His works are: 1. ‘Vulgar Errors in Divinity removed,’ London, 1683, 8vo. William Haworth, in his ‘Absolute Election of Persons, not upon foreseen conditions, stated and maintained’ (London, 1694, 4to), animadverts on some of the ‘Pelagian errors’ contained in this book. 2. ‘A Sermon on Matt. vii. 12,’ 1684, 4to. 3. ‘The Lawfulness and Expediency of Church-Musick asserted,’ in a sermon on Ps. c. 1, 2, London, 1694, 4to.

[Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, ii. 162; Noble's Continuation of Granger, i. 101; Kennett's Register and Chronicle, 830; Cantabrigienses Graduati (1787), 27; Evans's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, 742; Watt's Bibl. Brit.; Cat. Lib. Impress. Bibl. Bodl. (1843) i. 201; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy), iii. 81.]

T. C.

BATTEN, ADRIAN (fl. 1630), organist of St. Paul's, the dates of whose birth and death cannot be ascertained, was educated in the choir of Winchester Cathedral under John Holmes. As Holmes left Winchester in 1602, the date 1592 is the latest that can reasonably be assigned for Batten's birth. In 1614 he was appointed vicar-choral of Westminster, and in 1624 he removed to St. Paul's, where he held the post of organist in addition to that of vicar-choral. He composed a large number of anthems, and a morning and evening service. Of printed compositions by him there are six contained in Barnard's collection and two in Boyce's ‘Anthems.’ Manuscripts of his compositions are contained in the British Museum (Harl. MS. 7337), in the libraries of Christ Church and the Music School, Oxford, of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, and in Purcell's and Blow's collections in the Fitzwilliam. There is no doubt that Batten's works show great contrapuntal skill and considerable ingenuity and inventiveness; though Burney's depreciatory remarks on them would lead us to suppose that they were in no way remarkable. Batten is commonly supposed to have died about 1640; but Burney, on what authority we know not, states that he flourished during the reigns of Charles I and II, which would place his death at least twenty years later.

[Burney's History; Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians; manuscript music in British Museum and in collections in Oxford and Cambridge.]

J. A. F. M.

BATTEN, Sir WILLIAM (d. 1667), admiral, is stated by Burke to have been the son of Andrew Batten, of Easton St. George, near Bristol; though his career, so far as we can now trace it, connects him rather with the east country. Andrew Batten served for many years as master in the royal navy (Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 3 April 1621; 14 Jan. 1627–8), and was on 27 Feb. 1626–7 ordered by the special commissioners for inquiring into the state of the navy to complete the survey of cordage at Chatham. Afterwards he engaged in commerce, and (13 Dec. 1632) is described as master of the Salutation of Yarmouth. We may thus identify William Batten, the son of Andrew, with the William Batten who, on 24 Aug. 1626, obtained letters of marque for the Salutation, then called of London, owned by Andrew Hawes and others, and who, in conjunction with Andrew Hawes and others of Yarmouth, was ordered (1 April 1629) ‘to enter into a bond of 1,000l. that the Salutation of Yarmouth should not make any voyage for whale fishery to any countries within the compass of the Muscovy Company's patent’ [see Baffin, William]. There is no further mention of him till his appointment in 1638 as surveyor of the navy. ‘On Sunday last’ (16 Sept.), wrote the Earl of Northumberland's secretary to Sir John Pennington, ‘Captain Batten kissed his majesty's hand for the surveyor's place. His patent is drawing “during pleasure only,” as all patents must run hereafter. Here has been much striving for the place, Sir Henry Mainwaring, Captain Duppa, Mr. Bucke, cum multis aliis; but the king, with the help of somebody else, thought him the fittest man’ (19 Sept. 1638). The way in which Batten's name is thus introduced shows that he was far from being the ‘obscure fellow unknown to the navy’ described by Clarendon; and though the reference to ‘the help of somebody’ confirms Clarendon's more direct statement that he was made surveyor ‘for money,’ it was merely in accordance with the custom of the age, in which the price of the post was almost publicly quoted at 1,500l. (Monson's ‘Naval Tracts’ in Churchill's Voyages, iii. 331b.) It does not appear whether Batten had held any naval command before his appointment as surveyor; it is not improbable that he had, for in March 1642 he was appointed second in command of the fleet under the Earl of Warwick.