Charles Bertram

Charles Bertram (1723 – 1765) was the author of the forged manuscript De Situ Britanniae ("The Description of Britain"), a spurious history that was highly influential in the reconstruction of the history of Roman Britain for over a century. It had a similar impact on the explanation of Scottish history over the same period of time. He was otherwise a little-known writer, and his authorship of the forgery is his only modern notability. Bertram's motives are still unknown, as he never tried to profit directly from the forgery. For the remainder of his life, his notability was merely that he had found a valuable "lost" history of Britain and had made its contents public.