Over the course of the reigns of the last two Tudors and first three Stuarts – just in excess of a century – the national established Church of England was disestablished twice and re-established twice. Following the return to Rome under Mary, Elizabeth's settlement re-established the English Church under the royal supremacy, set down church doctrine and liturgy, embarked on a reform of canon law and so consolidated an ecclesial polity which many today see as an Anglican via media between papal Rome and Calvinist Geneva. However, as a compromise, the settlement contained in itself seeds of discord: it outlawed Roman reconciliation and recusancy; it extended lay and clerical discipline by the use of ecclesiastical commissioners; and it drove Puritans to agitate for reform on Presbyterian lines. While James I continued Elizabeth's policy, disappointing both Puritans and Papists, Charles I married a Roman Catholic, sought to impose a prayer book on Calvinist Scotland, asserted divine-right monarchy, engaged in an 11-year personal rule without Parliament and favoured Arminian clergy. With these and other disputes between Crown and Parliament, civil war ensued, a directory of worship replaced the prayer book, episcopacy and monarchy were abolished and a Puritan-style republic was instituted. The republic failed, and in 1660 monarchy was restored, the Church of England was re-established and a limited form of religious toleration was introduced under the Clarendon Code. In all these upheavals, understandings of the nature, source and authority of human law, civil and ecclesiastical, were the subject of claim and counter-claim. Enter Robert Sanderson: a life begun under Elizabeth and ended under Charles II, a protagonist who felt the burdens and benefits of the age, Professor of Divinity at Oxford and later Bishop of Lincoln, and a clerical-jurist who thought deeply on the nature of human law and its place in a cosmic legal order – so much so, he may be compared with three of his great contemporaries: the lawyer Matthew Hale (1609–1676), the cleric Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588–1678).

This report covers the groups of sessions held in April and July 2021. Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, General Synod did not meet formally in February.

Depending on how one counts it, the Governing Body of the Church in Wales met either two or three times in 2021. The April session was conducted entirely online, but the September sessions were split between a physical meeting on Monday 6 September and an online meeting on Wednesday 8 September.

The Church of Ireland Synod took place from Thursday 30 September to Saturday 1 October, meeting again by electronic communication technology. Being the first meeting of the triennium, it was for many their first experience of General Synod; yet the online format was a more familiar medium than it had been at the last meeting held in December 2020.

The General Assembly of the Church met in a ‘blended’ form, based at the Assembly Hall, from 22 May to 27 May. The Moderator on this occasion was an elder, rather than a minister, but with the distinction of being Lord Wallace of Tankerness PC QC FRSE, a Liberal Democrat life peer since 2007, who served as the Deputy First Minister of Scotland from 1999 to 2005. He was formerly Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats from 1992 to 2005 and of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords from 2013 to 2016. He also served as a Member of Parliament for Orkney and Shetland from 1983 to 2001 and a Member of the Scottish Parliament for Orkney from 1999 to 2007. He was Advocate General for Scotland in the Westminster Government from 2010 to 2015.

The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church (SEC) met in virtual form on 10 and 11 June 2021. In his charge to Synod, the Most Rev'd Dr Mark Strange, Primus, encouraged Synod members not to place their light under a bushel. The COVID-19 pandemic had denied people opportunities normally available to them to make their light shine and, at times, the bushel had felt very close. He reminded Synod members that in the valley of the shadow of death one need fear no evil. The evils of child poverty, the plight of refugees and unwarranted attacks on individuals in the public eye were all current evils to be confronted. Despite everything, the place of quiet waters and the comfort of the Shepherd's rod and staff still brought hope and joy, even in a pandemic.

Though public policy continued to be dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic, restrictions began to ease as the vaccine rollout progressed. The volume of secondary legislation barely slackened, however, and the lack of parliamentary scrutiny was a cause of concern both to academic commentators and to parliamentarians. On 10 June, the House of Lords Constitution Committee published its third and final report on the constitutional implications of coronavirus and was clearly very unhappy with the course of events: ‘The Government has introduced a large volume of new legislation, much of it transforming everyday life and introducing unprecedented restrictions on ordinary activities. Yet parliamentary oversight of these significant policy decisions has been extremely limited.’