Charles Bertram
| Charles Julius Bertram | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1723 London, England |
| Died | 8 January 1765 Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Occupation | Academic Presumed forger |
| Nationality | Anglo-Danish |
| Notable works |
Britannicarum Gentium Historiæ Antiquæ Scriptores Tres (The Description of Britain) |
Charles Julius Bertram (1723–1765) was an English expatriate in Denmark who "discovered"—and presumably wrote—The Description of Britain (Latin: De Situ Britanniae), an 18th-century literary forgery purporting to be a mediaeval work on history that remained undetected for over a century. In that time, it was highly influential for the reconstruction of the history of Roman Britain and contemporary Scotland, to the extent of appearing in Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and being used to direct William Roy's initial Ordnance Survey maps. Bertram "discovered" the manuscript around the age of 24 and spent the rest of his life a successful academic and author. Scholars contested various aspects of the Description, but it was not recognized as an unquestionable forgery until 1846.
Charles Bertram was born in London in 1723. He was the son of an English silk dyer who was usually accounted to have emigrated to Copenhagen, Denmark, among the retinue of Princess Louisa, a daughter of George II, upon her marriage to Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark in 1743. (The prince became King Frederick V three years later.) Other sources suggest the father immigrated earlier, in 1738. The father established himself as a hosier in 1744, and Charles seems to have benefited from the warm reception that Louisa and her retinue received from the Danes. On 5 July 1747, Charles petitioned the University of Copenhagen's Consortium for admission to study history, antiquities, philosophy, and mathematics. This seems to have been granted, although students were generally required to adhere to the Danish Church and Bertram remained Anglican. He became a friend and protégé of Hans Gram, the royal librarian and a member of the privy council. On 23 March 1748, Bertram petitioned the king to be permitted to give public lectures on the English language and became a teacher of English in the Royal Marine Academy in Copenhagen. (Some accounts name him as a professor, rather than a tutor; if so, that status would have been granted some years later, as he was a new undergraduate in 1747.) His 1749 chrestomathy An Essay on the Excellency and Style of the English Tongue has been called the initiation of English-language printing in Denmark. A brother apparently died at sea in 1752, and at some point he married Cathrine Marie Gold.
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