At fifteen he fought in the front of the royal army in the desperate fight at Shrewsbury.

Slight and tall in stature as he seemed, he had outgrown the weakness of his earlier years and was vigorous and swift of foot; his manners were courteous, his air grave and reserved; and though wild tales ran of revels and riots among his friends, the poets whom he favoured and Lydgate whom he set to translate "the drery piteous tale of him of Troy" saw in him a youth "both manful and vertuous." There was little time indeed for mere riot in a life so busy as Henry's, nor were many opportunities for self-indulgence to be found in campaigns against Glyndwr.

What fitted the young general of seventeen for the thankless work in Wales was his stern, immoveable will.

But fortune as yet had few smiles for the king in this quarter, and his constant ill-success continued to wake fresh troubles within England itself.

The repulse of the young prince in a spring campaign in 1405 was at once followed by a revolt in the north.