At the end of the Middle Ages, nobody would ever have expected the monasteries to vanish from the scene within a generation - yet they did. Change does happen.

In response Williams stated in a BBC interview that "certain provision[s] of sharia are already recognised in our society and under our law;. "


Interview with Emel magazine
In November 2007 Williams gave an interview for Emel magazine a British Muslim magazine. [citation needed]


Position on Freemasonry
In a leaked private letter Williams said that he "had real misgivings about the compatibility of Masonry and Christian profession" and that whilst Bishop of Monmouth he had prevented the appointment of Freemasons to senior positions within his diocese.

Williams stood down as Archbishop of Canterbury on 31 December 2012 and became Master of Magdalene College at Cambridge University in January 2013. He spent much of his earlier career as an academic at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford successively. Notable events in his primacy included the rejection by a majority of dioceses of his proposed Anglican Covenant and in the final General Synod of his tenure the failure to secure a sufficient majority for a measure to allow the appointment of women as bishops in the Church of England.