The medley of Brehon law and English law, with the variety of titles, some by forfeiture for treason, others by ancient grants from the Crown, formed an element in which the art of the predatory pettifogger had full play. By legal chicane, the chicane of an alien law, many an Irish Naboth may have been dispossessed. There was, moreover, the antagonism of religion, greatly intensified by the long struggle in which the natives, fighting for independence, had looked up to Rome for support and been fired at heart by the active zeal of her missionaries. The government meant well. It sent over an able lord deputy in the person of Chichester, who did his best for healing and improvement. In improvement he was somewhat hasty and procrustean. He might have done better had he only imbibed Bacon's spirit of philosophic toleration, and not fancied that for Irish barbarism Protestantism of the Anglican type was the sovereign cure. Bacon, as one of his three specifics for the recovery of the hearts of the people, had recommended a toleration, partial and temporary at least, of the Catholic religion, which was to be combined "with the sending over of some good preachers, especially of that sort which are vehement and zealous persuaders and not scholastical, to be resident in principal towns." The government issued a politic manifesto, promising to all native Irish of the poorer class equal protection and complete immunity from any oppressive claims of chiefs. But let the government charm as wisely as it might, it could not charm away the difference of race, language, and character, the antagonism of religion, the memories of the long and murderous struggle, the ravenous cupidity and overbearing attitude of the alien adventurer, the anguish of the native who saw the stranger in possession of his land.