duchy.[230] It [Sidenote: 1185] was not till after Christmas that Richard received permission to return to Poitou. He crossed from Dover to Wissant;[231] whether on his way through Normandy and Anjou he met Geoffrey—who was certainly the evil genius of the family—and what may have passed between them if he did, we know not; we only know that on April 16 Henry himself went back to Normandy, and straightway “gathered a great host to subdue his son Richard, who had fortified Poitou against him and attacked his brother Geoffrey, contrary to the king’s prohibition.”[232] Henry’s military preparations were in reality only a part of a new scheme which he had devised for making Richard surrender Poitou. In the preceding June (1184) Queen [Sidenote: 1184] Eleanor, after eleven years of captivity, had been released by her husband’s order and permitted to join their eldest daughter and her husband the duke of Saxony, now for the second time driven into exile.[233] At the end of April (1185) [Sidenote: 1185] Henry sent for her, and also for their daughter and son-in-law, to join him in Normandy; “and when they arrived, he sent instructions to his son Richard that he should without delay surrender the whole of Poitou with its appurtenances to his mother Queen Eleanor, because it was her heritage; and he added that if Richard in any way delayed to fulfil this command, he was to know for certain that the queen his mother would make it her own business to ravage the land with a great host. And Richard, when he had heard his father’s command, yielded to the wholesome advice of his friends; and laying down the arms of iniquity, returned with all meekness to his father, and surrendered all Poitou, with his castles and fortresses, to his mother.”[234]