When Catholics in England were deprived of the normal episcopal hierarchy, their general pastoral care was entrusted at first to a priest with the title of archpriest (in effect an apostolic prefect), and then, from 1623 to 1688, to one or more apostolic vicars, bishops of titular sees governing not in their own names, as diocesan bishops do, but provisionally in the name of the Pope. At first there was a single vicar for the whole kingdom, later their number was increased to four, assigned respectively to the London District, the Midland District, the Northern District, and the Western District. The number of vicariates was doubled in 1840, becoming eight: the apostolic vicariates of the London district, the Western, Eastern, and Central districts, and the districts of Wales, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the North.