 Like his older brother Albert, Bernard has been attributed a dissolute life, and been described as a wild creature.His bad reputation halted negotiations between his father and the Duke of Cleves, brother of the fourth wife of King Henry VIII of England, Anne of Cleves, for him to marry the Duke's other sister Amelia.In 1537, he opposed the proposed division of his father's territory among his father's sons, and in particular against the rights of his half-brother Charles II, arguing that his father's second marriage had been morganatic.