In the 1630s the churches of England got a facelift. The wooden communion table, which, by rubric, was supposed to stand length-wise in either the quire or the nave during the administration of the Lord's Supper, was repositioned along the eastern wall. Often raised on steps, the table was now cordoned off by rails, and in some churches it was even replaced with a stone altar. To some in England it seemed that the reformation of worship which had occurred in the sixteenth century was being systematically reversed. Images banished only a few generations earlier experienced a resurrection. Angels, the Virgin Mary and Christ himself appeared in stained glass, carved in stone and woven on vestments. Woodcarving had a minor renaissance (particularly in the north) as choir stalls grew more ornate and canopies appeared over baptismal fonts. Preachers were to give up extemporaneous prayers and newly delivered mothers were to wear veils at their churchings. While vestments, candles and choral singing multiplied, novel consecration liturgies were used for new structures. This was the work of the Laudians, a circle of clergy who at the accession of King Charles I in 1625 occupied strategic offices in the Church of England. Their ceremonialist agenda, which many contemporaries interpreted as a step back into pre-reformation ‘popery’, was known as ‘the beauty of holiness’, a phrase drawn from Psalms 29 and 96.