Spain in 1624, he had served for some time in the Low Countries as colonel of a regiment of 1,500 men. Thence he was recalled to take part in the naval expeditions of the Duke of Buckingham. For his important services he was in 1626 created Earl of Lindsey, and on the duke's death at Portsmouth, at the hands of Felton, in August 1628, he succeeded him as admiral of the fleet which had been gathered together to make a final effort for the relief of Rochelle. The attempt issued in disastrous failure, not in any degree from fault of the admiral, but owing to the fact that the condition of the vessels and the character of the officers rendered it impossible that the fleet could perform a naval achievement of any difficulty. In 1630 Lindsey was made a knight of the order of the Bath and a member of the privy council. In the following year, upon trial of combat between Lord Rea and David Ramsay, he was appointed to act as lord high constable for the day. After commanding a fleet of forty sail for securing the Narrow Seas, he was in the eleventh year of Charles chosen lord high admiral of England. On the Scots taking up arms in 1639 he was appointed governor of Berwick. At the trial of Strafford in the following year he, being at that time speaker of the House of Lords, acted as lord high constable. When the civil war broke out he raised the counties of Lincoln and Nottingham in the king's defence, the gentlemen of Lincoln engaging themselves in the service of the king chiefly from their strong regard for the Earl of Lindsey. He was the chief adviser of Charles in the measures he took to rally the defenders of the throne, and was appointed commander-in-chief of the royal forces. Prince Rupert was general of the horse, and in the princes commission there was a clause exempting him from receiving orders from any but the king himself. It was impossible from such an arrangement to expect satisfactory results. As the king began to show a preference for the opinions of the prince on all matters relating to the war, the Earl of Lindsey found himself virtually deprived of his command. Matters reached a crisis at the battle of Edgehill, 23 Oct. 1642, when the "prince set out without advising him, and in a form he liked not." Deeply galled at the unmerited slight, Lindsey exclaimed that "if he was not fit to be a general he would at least die a colonel at the head of his regiment." He was as good as his word, and, while leading his regiment forward pike in hand, received a mortal wound. He was carried off the field to a cottage hard by. Had surgeons been procured, it is supposed he might have recovered, but on the opening of the wounds he died from loss of blood before morning. While lying on the straw in the cottage he was visited by the Earl of Essex and other officers, whom he with great earnestness exhorted to return to their allegiance. He was buried in the vault at Edenham, Lincolnshire. Clarendon, who characterises the Earl of Lindsey as a person of "great honour, sagacity, courage, and of an excellent nature" states that his loss was "a great grief to the army, and generally to all who knew him." An earlier eulogy, together with a finely engraved portrait, appears in a rare tract entitled Hanover in his Perfection London, 1624. A copy is in the Grenville Library. Bertie was succeeded in the earldom by his eldest son Montague Bertie [q. v.]
[Lloyd's Memoirs, pp. 306–15; Dugdale's Baronage of England, ii. 408–9; Birch's Heads of Illustrious Persons of Great Britain, pp. 85-6; Biog. Brit., ed. Kippis, ii. 2824; Whitlocke's Memorials; Rushworth's Hist. Coll.; Clarendon's History of the Rebellion; State Papers, Domestic Series, Charles I.]
BERTIE, Sir THOMAS (1758–1825), vice-admiral, son of George Hoare, Esq., of London and formerly of Middleton Era, Durham, entered the navy in 1773, on board the Seahorse, where he was messmate of both Nelson and Troubridge, with whom he kept up a close intimacy till their deaths (Nelson's Despatches, freq., see index). He afterwards served with Sir Edward Hughes in the Salisbury, and with Captain Rowley in the Monarch, in which he was present in the battle of Ushant on 27 July 1778. He followed Rowley to the Suffolk, and was engaged at Grenada, 6 July 1779; and again to the Conqueror, as lieutenant, and was in Rodney's three actions with De Guichen, 17 April, 15 and 19 May 1780. He continued with Admiral Rowley until made commander, 10 Aug. 1782.
On 20 May 1788 he married Catherine Dorothy, daughter of Peregrine Bertie, Esq., whose name he assumed, in accordance with the terms of Bertie's will.
Captain Bertie was advanced to post rank on 22 Nov. 1790, and appointed for a short time to the Leda frigate. In 1795 he was sent out to the West Indies in command of the Hindostan, 54 guns; but, after a severe attack of yellow fever at Port-au-Prince, was obliged to return home in October 1796. The following year he commanded the Braakel, 54 guns, at Plymouth, and in October was appointed to the Ardent. The Ardent, though only of 64 guns, was a large and roomy ship:
