With such high levels of success as king as well as a substantial apprenticeship as Prince, it is easy to overlook the fact that Henry V was not born into the royal purple. Until his circumstances changed around the time of his thirteenth birthday in the autumn of 1399, his future was that of a peer. Even though his long-term prospects were promising – he was heir not only to his paternal Lancaster inheritance, but also to a share of that of the Bohuns through his co-heiress mother – he would have had to wait to enjoy these resources. In the shorter term, therefore, he was a landless youth dependent upon the financial support of his family.

His life and his financial resources were transformed by his father's usurpation of the throne. On 15 October 1399, two days after the coronation of Henry (Bolingbroke), the young Henry was created Prince of Wales, duke of Cornwall and earl of Chester, and was acknowledged as heir to the throne should his father die. On 23 October the title duke of Aquitaine was added, and on 10 November that of duke of Lancaster. With the first group of titles went a substantial landed endowment defined by precedent – the earldom of Chester; the principality of Wales, which fell into two groups of counties in North and South Wales; and the south-western lands of the duchy of Cornwall, as well as its ‘foreign manors’ outside Devon and Cornwall which comprised scattered holdings in the midlands and south of England.