by the English authorities. The Lord Deputy Sir Richard Bingham, noted for his severity, is described in the Annals as having executed seventy men and women in Galway in January 1586. In 1588, the year of the Spanish Armada, the Lord Deputy Sir William Fitz-Williams had a number of survivors beheaded near St Augustine's Monastery. Decline After the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Galway was in a delicate position, caught, in effect between the Catholic rebels (Confederates) and its English garrison ensconced in Fort Hill just outside the city. Eventually, Galway citizens, who were predominantly Catholic, went against their garrison and supported the confederate side in 1642. The fort was besieged with the aid of Confederate troops until it surrendered and its garrison was evacuated by sea. During the 1640s, Galway was heavily fortified against an expected counter-attack by English forces, which eventually materialised when English Parliamentarian forces re-conquered Ireland in 1649–52. Galway surrendered to Cromwellian forces in 1652 after a nine-month siege; plague and expulsions of Catholic citizens followed. The Cromwellian Act of Settlement 1652 caused major upheavals, as peoples from east of the Shannon were transplanted to Connacht and slipped back. After the demise of the English Commonwealth and the English Restoration in 1660, (and the further Act of Settlement 1662 and its Act of Explanation 1665), the economy of Galway recovered somewhat. In the next crisis, centred on the deposition of the Catholic King James II, in 1689, Galway supported the Jacobite side. It surrendered without a siege under the Articles of Galway of 1691 after the annihilation of the main Jacobite army at the nearby battle of Aughrim. Thereafter, the city became an economic backwater, and the capital of its old great families were spent overseas. It took about 300 years for the city to regain its former status. 18th century After the 17th century wars, Galway, as a Catholic port city, was treated with great suspicion by the authorities. Legislation of 1704 (the Popery Act) stated that no new Catholics apart from seamen and day labourers could move there. On top of that, when fears arose of a French invasion of Ireland in 1708 and 1715 (during the Jacobite rising of 1715 in Scotland), all Catholics were ordered to leave the city. The corporation, which ran Galway was also confined to Protestants. This is all the more surprising given that a 1762 census showed that of