Charles III acceded to the British throne on 8 September 2022, becoming at the same time Supreme Governor of the Church of England. This article presents an overview of the law relating to the King and the Church of England, and considers the effects of the royal supremacy today.

At the 2008 Lambeth Conference, The Principles of Canon Law Common to the Churches of the Anglican Communion were launched. For the first time, detailed principles of Anglican canon law were made manifest, the fruit of earlier research by the legal academic Norman Doe. As early as 2002, the Primates of the Communion had recognised that ‘the unwritten law common to the Churches of the Communion and expressed as shared principles of canon law may be understood to constitute a fifth “instrument of unity”’. The Principles project proved to be a wellspring of legal scholarship and ecumenical activity both before and after the 2008 publication.

All Christians are called to pray. The daily offering of Morning and Evening Prayer is a particular obligation of the clergy of the Church of England, as part of the ‘manner of life of clerks’ laid down in Canon C 26. However, despite the significant time devoted to these prayers by the clergy on a daily basis, there has been little detailed examination of this canonical obligation. This article explores the historical background to the obligation and its effect today.