With the Black Prince dead, in June 1376 his only surviving son, Richard of Bordeaux, the future Richard II, inherited most of his father's many titles. By the terms of the creation of the duchy in 1337, however, the lordship of Cornwall returned to the hands of the king, the aged and bereft Edward III. In July the Crown appointed Sir Hugh de Segrave as steward of all the prince's former lordships while his executors surveyed their value. Soon after bestowing on Richard two thirds of the duchy estates and profits, the king granted the young duke's mother, the widowed Princess Joan of Kent, the profits of the remaining portion of the lordship. For the better management of her prerogatives, Joan chose to employ as her receiver in Cornwall the well-connected Sir William Brantingham, a relative of the bishop of Exeter. She also had the Crown sue out commissions of oyer and terminer to investigate grievances of hers, including one in 1383, after ‘divers fishermen’ had avoided paying customs in her lordship. Exercising no little influence across the kingdom, the princess's ‘supplication’ in 1381 even prompted Richard II to expand Brantingham's commission to that of receiver of all Cornwall and Devon. On Joan's death in 1385, however, all her lands reverted to Richard himself.

Rather more significantly, in June 1377 Richard of Bordeaux ascended to the throne of England as Richard II. As a result, the duchy came to be vested directly in the Crown, remaining the childless king's personal preserve for the rest of his reign. Although during his minority the boy-king's rulership depended on a series of perpetual councils rather than a formal regency, the government still had the accounts of the lordship surveyed and deposited in the exchequer. At the same time it granted annuities from the duchy to a variety of royal dependents, among them one Rocelin de Ostery, a servitor to Richard who received the office of constable of Restormel.