During the last years of Henry VIII.'s reign St. Leger continued his efforts to reduce the country to subjection not by force but by persuasion. The religious issue was not put forward prominently, and with the exception of grants of monastic lands and possessions very little seems to have been done. The Deputy's letters contain glowing reports of his successes. In the course of the warm controversy that raged between him and John Alen, the Chancellor, during the years 1546 and 1547, the various reports forwarded to England are sufficient to show that outside the Pale the English authorities had made little progress. Although St. Leger was able to furnish a striking testimony from the council as to his success, and although a letter was sent by the Irish princes in praise of Henry VIII.[67] (1546), proofs are not wanting that Henry's policy had met with only partial success. According to a letter sent by Archbishop Browne in 1546 the Irish people were not reconciled to English methods of government, and according to the chancellor, the king's writ did not run in the Irish districts. The Irishmen who pretended to submit did not keep to their solemn promises. They still followed their own native laws regardless of English statutes, and the king could not get possession of the abbeys or abbey lands situated within their territories. Even the council, which sought to defend the Deputy against these attacks, was forced to admit that his Majesty's laws were not current in the Irish districts.[68] One of the last steps taken by the council at the suggestion of Henry VIII. was the appointment of a vice-regent in spirituals for the clergy, to grant dispensations as they were granted in England by Cranmer, so as to prevent the Irish from having recourse to Rome for such grants.[69]