16. =Ireland under Edward VI. and Mary. 1547-1558.=--The real difficulty of the English Government in Ireland lay in its relations with the Irish tribes, whether under Celtic chiefs or Anglo-Norman lords. At the end of the reign of Edward VI. an attempt had been made to revert to the better part of the policy of Henry VIII., and the heads of the tribes were entrusted by the government with powers to keep order in the hope that they would gradually settle down into civilisation and obedience. Such a policy required almost infinite patience on the part of the Government, and the Earl of Sussex, who was Lord Deputy under Mary, began again the old mischief of making warlike attacks upon the Irish which he had not force or money enough to render effectual. It was Mary and not a Protestant sovereign who first sent English colonists to occupy the lands of the turbulent Irish in King's County and Queen's County--then much smaller than at present. A war of extermination at once began. The natives massacred the intruders and the intruders massacred the natives, till--far on in Elizabeth's reign--the natives had been all slaughtered or expelled. There was thus introduced into the heart of Ireland a body of Englishmen who, no doubt, were far more advanced in the arts of life than the Irish around them, but who treated the Irish with utter contempt, and put them to death without mercy. 17. =Elizabeth and Ireland. 1558-1578.=--From the time of the settlement of King's and Queen's Counties all chance of a peaceable arrangement was at an end. Elizabeth had not money enough to pay an army capable of subduing Ireland, nor had the Irish tribes sufficient trust in one another to unite in national resistance. There was, in fact, no Irish nation. Even Shan O'Neill, the most formidable Irish opponent of the English Government, who was predominant in the North during the early part of Elizabeth's reign, failed because he tried to reduce the other Ulster chiefs to subjection to himself, and in =1567= was overthrown by the O'Donnells, and not by an English army. When the English officials gained power, they were apt to treat the Irish as if they were vermin to be destroyed. New attempts at colonisation were made, but the Irish drove out the colonists, and Ireland was in a more chaotic state than if it had been left to its own disorder.