 If the privilege had ceased to be part of the common law, legislation would be necessary to re-establish it.If it survived in the common law it can only have done so through the allowance of it in the case of the Church of England, from where it may be possible to argue its extension to other creeds.It was decided by the Court of King's Bench in a judgment delivered by Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke in the case of "Middleton v. Croft" that the Canons of 1603, though binding on the clergy, do not bind the laity.