Henry Bard, 1st Viscount Bellomont

Who was Henry Bard, 1st Viscount Bellomont?

Henry Bard, 1st Viscount Bellomont was an English Royalist.

Bard was the son of the Reverend George Bard, Vicar of Staines, Middlesex, a representative of an old Norfolk family. He was educated at Eton, and in 1632 entered King's College, Cambridge, where he took the Master's degree and a fellowship. Before this date he had travelled considerably, having visited Paris, and journeyed on foot through France, Italy, Turkey, Palestine, and Egypt. It is alleged that during his sojourn in the last country he surreptitiously gained possession of a copy of the Koran which was the property of one of the mosques, and which he appropriated and afterwards presented to his college.

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.