Parliament was accordingly summoned, and at Candlemas, in 1625, the coronation was celebrated. This ceremonial, which might have assisted in re-establishing good feeling, proved, unhappily, the source of bitter dissension and cavilling. The coronations of Edward VI. and of Queen Elizabeth had been performed according to the rites of the Romish Church. That of James I. was done in haste; and “wanted,” says the biographer of Laud, “many things which might have been considered in a time of leisure.”[290] Amongst the alterations suggested by the prelates who were appointed as commissioners to settle the form, it was decreed that anointing was to be performed in the form of a cross, a point established, which was at that time as fertile a source of invective as the use of that most holy and touching symbol in our churches has since been in these days, even amongst well-intentioned and pious Christians. Footnote 290: Heylyn’s Life of Laud, p. 145. Even the ritual of the coronation, therefore, performed as it was, almost for the first time, according to the mode which it has since retained, contributed indirectly to the unpopularity of Buckingham. To Laud, that prelate to whose memory so much injustice has been done, in imputing to him designs and motives of which no proof exists, and yet whose errors bring pain to every thinking mind, was allotted the performance of the great ceremonial. Formerly it had been the office of the Abbot of Westminster to celebrate the rite; then, for a century, the Dean had held the guardianship of the regalia used by Edward the Confessor, and had kept them in a secret part of Westminster Abbey. These valuables were now disinterred from their hiding-place by Laud, who, finding also the old crucifix, set it up on the altar, as in former times. Everything relating to this coronation wore an ominous appearance; in the first place, it was fixed for the day of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, and the King, whether from compliment to the faith of his wife, or from taste, or, from the supposed influence of Laud, it does not transpire, was dressed in white, instead of purple, used always by his predecessors. “Not,” says Heylyn, with quaint simplicity, “for want of purple velvet enough to make him a suit (for he had many yards of it in his outer garment), but from choice, to declare that virgin purity with which he came to be espoused unto his kingdom.” His laying aside the purple was, however, looked upon as an “ill omen.”[291] Footnote 291: Heylyn’s Life of Laud, p. 145.