This surname is derived from the name of an ancestor. 'the son of Bertram'; v. Bartram and Bertin.

Richard Bertram, Northumberland, 1168: Hodgson's History of Northumberland.

Berteram le Barbur, Salop, 1273. Hundred Rolls.

Bertramus de Verdun, 7 Henry II: Pipe Roll.

Ricardus Bartrem, 1379: Poll Tax of Yorkshire.

Johannes Bartrem: ibid.

1741. Married — Benjamin Bertram and Sarah Mills: St. George, Hanover Square.

The Old English personal name Beorhtram, "shining raven." Johan Bertram, burgess of Inverkeithing, rendered homage, 1296 (Bain, II, 819). Walter Bartrem, who had a safe conduct to travel in England in 1464, may be Walter Bertrahame, provost of Edinburgh, 1482 (Bain, IV, 1343, 1480). He was also ambassador to France in 1482, and founded two chaplainries in St. Giles (Stodart, II, p. 413). Johannes Bertrame had a remission for his share in burning the town of Dunbertane, 1489 (Lennox, II, p. 133). Alexander Barthrame was apprentice in Edinburgh, 1667 (Edin. App.), and another Alexander Bertram was retoured heir of William Bertram of Neisbitt, 1690 (Retours, Lanark, 385). Barthram 1633, Bartram and Bartrim 1632, Bartrum 1625, Bertraham 1493, Bertrahame 1479, Bertrum 1670; Bartherem, Barthrem, Bartrome, Bertrem.

(Teutonic) Bright or Glorious Ra­ven. [Teutonic Bertram, Berhtram, &c.-Old Saxon berht-O.H.Ger. beraht = Old English be(o)rht = Old Norse biart-r = Gothic bairht-s, bright, glorious, &c. + * Old Saxon O.H.Ger. h)ram = Old English hremm, hræfn = Old Norse hramn, a raven]

“Bright Raven” (Bertran) in Old German.

(English) Descendant of Bertram (bright, raven).

“Robert Bertram ki estoit tort” (crooked), Lord of Briquebec, near Valognes, is mentioned by Wace: his younger brother William is also generally considered to have been present at Hastings, and appears on the Dives Roll. The Norman barony of Briquebec, consisting of forty knights’ fees, is said to have taken its name from Brico, a Norwegian Viking, who was the ancestor of this family. “Aslac or Anslac, his son, filled a great part in Norman history. His brother Amfrid, the Dane, was ancestor of the Earls of Chester, and the barons of Bec-Crespin.”—The Norman People. “A younger branch, from whom came the Mitfords, formed establishments, though not of much account, in England: it probably descended from the above-mentioned William, or from another William de Bertram, who stands in Domesday as a small holder in Hampshire.”—Taylor. One of these Williams became Baron of Mitford and Bothall, in Northumberland, probably after the forfeiture of Robert Mowbray. He either founded or gave lands to the Augustinian priory of Brinkbourne, and married a daughter of Guy de Baliol, by whom he had two sons: Roger Bertram, baron of Mitford; and Richard Bertram, ancestor of the barons of Bothall.

The elder line, seated in its picturesque Border fortress on the Wansbeck, survived till 1311. A lineal descendant and namesake of the first Roger joined the rising of the Barons against King John, and, in retaliation, had his castle seized, and his town of Mitford destroyed with fire and sword by the savage Flemish hordes who then devastated Northumberland as the auxiliaries of the King. While still in the custody of the Crown, the castle was besieged by Alexander of Scotland; it was afterwards granted to Philip de Ulcotes, and in the following reign restored to its rightful owner. The next Roger Bertram was one of the Northern barons summoned to march into Scotland to the rescue of the young King of Scots, Henry III.’s son-in-law, in 1258. Six years afterwards, unwarned by the sad experiences of his father, he was arrayed among the insurgents in the Baron’s War, taken prisoner at Northampton, and his castle and barony again forfeited—this time for ever. He seems, indeed, to have speedily made his peace with the King, for in 1264 he was summoned to parliament as Baron Bertram—but Mitford knew him no more. He was succeeded by his son, who had no child except a daughter who died early, and on whose death the barony fell into abeyance between the Fitzwilliams, Darcys, and Penulburys, as the representatives of his three sisters.

Mitford Castle passed through various hands. In 1316 it harboured a freebooter “who,” says Leland, “robby’d a Cardinal cominge out of Scotland,” and was himself there captured by Ralph Lord Greystock, and carried to London for execution. Two years later, when it was taken and destroyed by the King of Scots, who left it in ruins, it was, with the entire barony of Mitford, the property of Adomar de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. It eventually came by different co-heiresses to Lord Brough, who, in 1557, granted it to a descendant of the original owners, Cuthbert Mitford. His ancestor, Richard, was a younger brother of the first Lord Bertram, and bore the name of De Mitford as that of the paternal barony. “The manor of Molesden was purchased by this branch 1369, Mollaston was not a purchase, but a grant of Strabolgy, Earl of Atholl, to Sir John de Mitford. (See Hutchinson.) and in allusion to it, they adopted three moles in their arms, the descent from the Bertrams being probably then forgotten through lapse of time, and so entirely has this been the case, that this, the legitimate male representative of one of the most illustrious Norman families, is now traced to imaginary Anglo- Saxon ancestors.”—The Norman People. The castle and manor of Mitford came afterwards to the Crown, and were re-granted by Charles II. to Robert Mitford. From him are derived the present family; one of whom, a younger brother, was appointed Lord Chancellor of Ireland and created Baron Redesdale in 1802.

The junior line of Bertrams held their barony of Bothall from the King in capite by the service of three knight’s fees. Their castle also stood on the brink of a rock washed by the brawling stream of the Wansbeck, surrounded by beautiful woods sloping down the banks, and in many places overhanging the water. Most of what yet remains of it is of a much later date than their time. Robert Bertram, Sheriff of Northumberland and Governor of Newcastle-on-Tyne in the reign of Edward III., who first obtained licence to castellate his manor-house of Bothall, proved the last of the family; and his daughter Helen carried the barony to the Ogles, and was the grandmother of the first Lord Ogle.

One of these Lords of Bothall was the Hermit of Warkworth, whose pathetic story, long handed down by tradition, has been preserved and elaborated in Bishop Percy’s ballad. He loved his neighbour, Isabel de Widdrington, and was loved in return: but, like a true daughter of “These northern counties here, Whose word is snaffle, spur and spear,”

she chose to put his mettle to the test before giving him her hand. She sent him a helmet as her love-token, with a message desiring him to try its temper “wherever blows fell sharpest;” and Bertram, obedient to her behest, rode with his brother-in-arms Lord Percy on a raid into Scotland, where he was wounded nearly to the death in a desperate fray. The tidings were brought to Isabel, who, struck with horror and remorse, at once set out to go to him; but on her way was seized by some prowling moss-troopers, and carried off to one of their secret fastnesses beyond the Border. Thus, when, “at the dewfall of the night,” her rescued knight was carried home on the shields of his followers, he found his lady gone, and all traces of her lost He made a vow never to rest till he had found her, and his brother promised to help him in the quest. As soon as his strength permitted, they went forth together in a “humble disguise:” and the better to conduct their search, agreed to separate, the brother going Northwards, and Bertram himself to the West. For many weary days and weeks he wandered “over moss and moor” in vain; till at length, when he had well-nigh lost heart, a compassionate pilgrim directed him to a distant peel-tower, in which a lady’s voice had been heard lamenting. Bertram found the place, and recognised the voice; but watched the tower for two successive nights without obtaining a glimpse of his Isabel. On the third night, however, that he lay crouched in his hiding place, he saw her descend a ladder of ropes thrown from an upper window, assisted by a man muffled up in a cloak, who bore her across the little stream, and led her away, clinging fondly to his arm. Bertram, maddened at the sight, rushed after them with his naked sword, and attacked his rival, who defended himself manfully; but after a stubborn conflict Bertram succeeded in bringing him to the ground, and stabbed him to the heart with the words, “Die, traitor!” Then, when she heard his voice, the wretched Isabel for the first time knew who he was, and sprang forward to arrest the blow, shrieking “It is thy brother!” She was too late, for the deed was done, and in the struggle to throw herself between them, she slipped against Bertram’s sword, and fell pierced by his brother’s side.

For that night’s bloody tragedy, the unhappy Bertram did penance to the end of his days. He renounced every tie that bound him to the world. His sword and spear were hung up in his hall; his inheritance passed on to others, and his goods given to the poor; while he himself, clad in monastic garb, took refuge in the rocky recesses of Coquetdale, near Warkworth Castle. No more ideal retreat could be devised for an anchorite than this lovely sequestered glen, where the hurrying Coquet stays its “troubled current” beneath precipitous cliffs, clothed with trees that spring from every chink and crevice of the stone; and from an overhanging grove of stately oaks above, a runlet of the purest water comes rippling down. Here his dwelling-place, scooped out of the living rock, remains almost as perfect as when he left it. It can only be reached from the river, by a long flight of steps. Over the entrance linger the traces of the original inscription, Sunt mihi lachrymæ meæ cibo interdiu et noctu. The first cell is a miniature chapel, complete in all its details, with a raised altar at the East end; and on a recessed altar tomb beside it the effigy of a woman, “very delicately designed,” but now broken and time-worn, lying with her head towards the East, and her arms slightly raised, showing that her hands have been folded in prayer. At her feet, in a niche cut in the stone, the figure of the Hermit kneels in eternal penitence, his head resting on his hand. Beyond this, reached through a doorway, bearing on a shield the Crucifixion and the emblems of the Passion, is a still smaller oratory, used by the Hermit as a sleeping place; with a similar altar at the farther end, and near it, a narrow ledge hewn out of the rock for his couch. Neither by night nor by day, did he ever lose sight of the beloved effigy in the adjoining chapel; for at the altar a window is contrived through which he could see it as he knelt at his devotions; and when lying on his bed, a niche cut slant wise through the partition wall still enabled him to rest his faithful eyes upon it. No one knows for how many sorrowful years he lived here “in penance and contrition,” nor when Death came to his release. Tradition assigns a very early date to the story: but it must be remembered that there were no Percies in Northumberland before 1309, and that Warkworth did not come into their possession till the following reign. His early friend Lord Percy honoured his memory by maintaining a chantry priest to sing mass in the chapel, and inhabit the Hermitage, whose allowance was continued down to the suppression of the monasteries. “The patent is extant which was granted to the last hermit in 1532 by the sixth Earl of Northumberland.” —Hutchinson.

A well-known baptismal name. The family is Norman, dating from temp. Hen. I., when William B. founded the Priory of Brinkburne, co. Northumb. Also local, as William de B. occurs in Domesd. as a tenant in chief, co. Hants. Two baronies by tenure were held in the name of Bertram down to the XIII. cent.

Fair and pure.

(Saxon.) Fair and pure.

An illustrious Norman name. See Mitford.

A Norman name: From the Domesday Book, de Bertram, Robert Vicomte, 1047.

Bertram: the Hunchback, is mentioned by Wace. ‘‘A younger branch, from whom came the Mitfords, formed establishments, though not of much account, in England, and it is probably descended from William (younger brother of the Crookback), or from another William who stands in Domesday as a small holder in Hampshire” (I. Taylor). Nothing can really be concluded as to the connection of the Mitfords with the Bertram of the Conquest, as Bertram is a personal name and not a surname.