After the Norman conquest of Ireland, English law provided the model for Irish law. This originally mandated a death sentence for any felony, a class of crimes established by common law but, in Ireland as in England, was extended by various Acts of Parliament; a situation later dubbed the "Bloody Code". After the Irish Reformation, the Protestant Ascendancy to impede Roman Catholic practices passed Penal Laws, some of which created capital crimes which produced Irish Catholic Martyrs. The gallows speech was a popular genre of broadside from the Williamite revolution through the eighteenth century, feeding into popular ballads of the nineteenth century. In 1789 Elizabeth Sugrue ("Lady Betty") was among 26 led to the County Roscommon gallows; when the hangman failed to appear, she agreed to hang the other 25 if the sheriff would stay her own execution. She remained county executioner until 1802, when her death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.