Cradle of Henry V the son of Mary de Bohun and Henry Bolingbroke, and the grandson of John of Gaunt. Monmouth was among Henry of Bolingbroke's possessions and it was where the newly married couple lived for several years. Mary was to die in 1394; Henry Bolingbroke ousted king Richard II and became Henry IV, King of England, in 1399. The young Henry of Monmouth succeeded his father to become King Henry V in 1413. During the 18th and early 19th centuries the cradle was famous locally and its claim to be a genuine relic of Henry V's childhood was generally accepted. It was
Henry IV of England his nephew King Richard II (1377-1399) whom Henry eventually deposed. Henry's mother was Blanche of Lancaster, heiress to the great Lancashire estates of her father Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster (a descendant in the male line of King Henry III). Henry, having succeeded his father as 2nd Duke of Lancaster, when he became king thus founded the Lancaster branch of the Plantagenet English monarchy. He was also the first King of England since the Norman Conquest whose mother tongue was English rather than French. One of Henry's elder sisters, Philippa of Lancaster, married King John I of Portugal,