The nine years’ war at the end of the 16th century was not caused by another attempt at Plantation in Ulster: in fact it was caused by an attempt to fragment the Gaelic lordships into smaller units and destroy the great Gaelic lords. And the first attempt happens at Monaghan when Monaghan is broken-up into small grants of land to the local Irish, and the local lord Hugh RoeMcMahon is hung apparently outside his own door in Monaghan town which is a great shock to all the Gaelic Irish of Ulster.

Now in this situation the main beneficiaries of this policy are going to be the English officials who are now going to rule Ulster, and basically in those terms, the main English official who was going to gain by the so-called Reformation of Ulster was Henry Bagenal who was Marshall of Ireland; and he hoped to become the Lord President of Ulster and that is why there is great rivalry between Hugh O’Neill and Henry Bagenal.

Hugh O’Neill, in the first instance, tries to neutralise Henry Bagenal by enmeshing him in a marriage alliance - far from Hugh O’Neill falling in love with Mabel Bagenal, the business of his elopement with Mabel Bagenal is a much older man, using Hugh O’Neill’s undoubted charm to inveigle Mabel Bagenal into a marriage in an attempt to force the Bagenal family into an alliance with him, or at least neutralise them. But that doesn’t work and in fact it further embitters relations between O’Neill and the Bagenals.

In Western Ulster, Bingham, who is Governor of Connaught, has ambitions in Fermanagh and Donegal and is already active in Leitrim, also breaking up the lordship of Leitrim. After Sir Brian O’Rourke, because of assisting Armada sailors and survivors, had been executed in London at Highburn, County Leitrim was taken over and its lordships sort of broke it up, so that the power of the Gaelic lords has been broken. And similarly this was also underway in Clandeboye as well where the lordship is being made into segments, and English law is being opposed. And at the head of this whole process, Bagenal is the man who hopes he is going to be there ruling the thing, so this is why Hugh O’Neill takes such exception to Bagenal and the Gaelic lords of Ulster generally take such exception to this new policy of breaking up the lordships.