In 1811, two of Europe’s sovereigns were unable to govern as they normally would. King George III had been incapacitated by illness, and Parliament appointed his son Prince Regent to rule in his place. Pope Pius VII, meanwhile, was Napoleon’s prisoner, having been abducted from the Quirinal Palace in Rome two years earlier. But the Catholic Church had no Prince Regent. Pius remained pope throughout his captivity, communicating with the outside world through letters smuggled past his French guards. He kept resisting Napoleon’s attempts to bring the Church under imperial control, and in 1814 he finally returned to Rome.