In the years of war following the Irish rebellion of 1641, the island was an important staging posts for arms deliveries to the Irish Catholic rebels and their allies, the Royalists, from the Duke of Lorraine. The Royalists were supporters of King Charles I of England in the English Civil War against the Parliamentarians. In August 1649, the Parliamentarian forces under Oliver Cromwell had landed in Ireland and over the next few years conquered it. In early 1653, Cromwellian warships threatened to bombard the island and Inishbofin surrendered on 14 February to Sir John Reynolds. It was thus one of the last Royalist strongholds to fall to Cromwell's army. According to some accounts, after Galway had fallen in 1652, Rory O'Moore, one of the initiators of the 1641 rebellion fled to Inishbofin, where he lived in a cave.