 Bard's habits of life were expensive, the liberality and generosity of his wealthy brother, Maximilian, enabling him to indulge them.His accomplishments included the knowledge of several languages and, coupled with his experience as a traveller and a wide knowledge of men and events, served to commend him to Charles I, with whom he became a favourite, and whose policy throughout the English Civil War he sustained as a strong partisan.He was one of the earliest to take up arms in the king's behalf, obtaining through the queen a colonel's commission in Pinchbeck's Regiment of Foote.