Although the protection of churches and holy places was embodied froman early date in Canon law, the law of sanctuary as it applied in England was necessarily part of the secular common law. The Church never had the physical power to resist the secular authorities in the administration of justice, and although those who violated sanctuary were liable to excommunication the Church could not in cases of conflict prevent the removal from sanctuary of someone to whom the privilege was not allowed by the law of the land. The control of the common law judges was, indeed, tighter than in the case of benefit of clergy. The question whether an accused person was or was not a clerk in Holy Orders was ultimately a question for the ordinary, however much pressure might be put upon him by the judges; but the question of sanctuary or no sanctuary was always a question for the royal courts to decide, upon the application of a person who claimed to have been wrongly arrested in a privileged place. The present summary is confined to the position under English law.

When the Shops Bill was defeated at its Second Reading in the House of Commons in the early hours of 15 April 1986, Mrs Thatcher is believed to have said that a “mercy killing” had been performed. The Bill had run into considerable difficulty under a weight of public opposition, coming at the time of some disarray in the Government, following the Westland and Leyland controversies and the resignation of two Cabinet Ministers. It was only the second time since 1924 that a Government Bill had been defeated at Second Reading, and was caused by 72 Government backbenchers defying a three-line whip and voting with the opposition.

In February 1988 a group of German, Italian and Spanish scholars, principally professors of ecclesiastical law, met on the politically if not theologically neutral ground of Geneva to consider the creation of a European body linking scholars working in this field in the various member States of the European Community.

As a general principle, regular marriage in the Church of England is solemnized after the publication of banns. This requirement entered the medival canon law first as a matter of local custom, but was made universal in 1215 by a decree of the Fourth Lateran Council. Lord Hardwicke's Act did not impose the requirement of banns for the first time; it simply ensured that the option of an irregular marriage without banns, previously recognised by Church and State thoughfrowned upon, would no longer be valid in law.