 There was perhaps a certain amount of ignorance, on behalf of the population, to theological argument, and a retention of superstition and even pagan ways.The parish clergy were few and ill-educated (the better ones, like the bishops, wanted livings in more prosperous areas of the country).Therefore, in the 1560s, the Bishop of Carlisle, John Best, found little resistance to reform (except among some priests protected by Dacre and the Earl of Cumberland, both probably anxious about loss of local power after the Rising of the North).