Henry’s scheme seemed to be on the verge of success. Richard had at last been induced to surrender, nominally to his mother, but practically to his father—for Eleanor was clearly a mere cipher in the matter—the fief for which he was his father’s homager, and which was the material basis of the ducal power over all Aquitaine; he had set his father free to make a new grant of that fief to whomsoever he would. If a grant of it were made to John, with the sanction of the lord paramount, Richard would soon be unable to stand his ground in the duchy, should he even attempt to do so. For the time being Richard was utterly passive. It was his nature to do nothing by halves, and his submission seems to have been as whole-hearted as his defiance had been; “he remained,” says an English chronicler with evident admiration, “with his father as an obedient son.”[235] Henry kept [Sidenote: 1186] him in suspense for eleven months. Then, on March 10, 1186, the two kings held another conference, and the treaty made in December 1183 was confirmed, but with a modification of one article. In 1184 Henry had either made overtures, or readily accepted overtures made to him, for a marriage between Richard and a daughter of the Emperor;[236] but the maiden had died before the end of the year.[237] This project had been succeeded by another whose originator is most likely to have been Richard himself; it can hardly have been at any other time than during his brief period of freedom from his engagement to Aloysia that he received a promise of Berengaria’s hand from her father, King Sancho.[238] His inclination, however, was overridden by his father’s imperious will and by the exigencies of the family policy. If Philip knew or suspected anything of Henry’s projects for John, he was probably keen-witted enough to perceive their futility and to prefer running no risk of a family alliance with a Lackland. On the other hand, the retention of Aloysia’s dower-lands was a matter of interest to Henry’s heir as well as to Henry himself. The sequel was to show that Henry had no real intention of marrying Aloysia to either of his sons; he may therefore have privately intimated to Richard that the sacrifice now required of him was only temporary. At any rate, in the treaty with Philip as ratified [Sidenote: 1186] on March 10, 1186, it was distinctly stated that Aloysia and her dowry, the Vexin, were to be given to the bridegroom for whom she had been originally destined, Richard.[239]