Charles Bertie (senior)

Captain Charles Bertie (ca. 1640 – 22 March 1711), British diplomat, was the fifth son of Montagu Bertie, 2nd Earl of Lindsey by his first wife, Martha Cokayne. He rose to serve as Secretary to the Treasury under his brother-in-law, the Earl of Danby, from 1673 until 1679, but did not wield significant political power thereafter. He did, however, twice enjoy the office of Treasurer of the Ordnance before his death in 1711.

Bertie was educated first at a school of Charles Croke at Amersham and then probably at Westminster School. Admitted to the Middle Temple on 25 October 1658, he did not, however, take up a career as a barrister but went abroad in France and Switzerland for the next several years.

Determined upon a diplomatic career, Bertie served as attaché at Madrid from 1664 to 1665 under Sir Richard Fanshawe, who wrote favorably of him to the King. He graduated M.A. from Oxford University in 1665, and was incorporated at Cambridge University in 1667. He was subsequently commissioned both as a second lieutenant in the Royal Navy and as a captain in the Coldstream Guards in 1668.

Bertie traveled through Scandinavia and possibly Prussia and Poland in 1670, and was named envoy-extraordinary to Denmark in March 1671. He left the following month for Denmark, by way of Hamburg, and returned home in February 1672 after the completion of his negotiations.

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