Sir Henry had Mabel removed to live with her sister Mary at Turvey, Co. Dublin.  Mabel's subsequent elopement and marriage to O'Neill so deepened the feud between the two men that she became 'the Helen of the Irish War' (Bagwell, 3.223).  They were married in August 1591; Bagenal vainly attempted to prove that O'Neill was not properly divorced from his first wife and consistently refused to pay the £1000 dowry to O'Neill.

Bagenal kept a journal of the military campaign of the autumn of 1593.  In September he led his soldiers into Monaghan again, attacking the McMahons en route for Fermanagh to repulse Hugh Maguire, whose forces had recently defeated Sir Richard Bingham.  Maguire's defences at the Erne fords near Beleek were broken. 

Bagenal left troops under Captain Dowdall to consolidate his hold over Enniskillen, captured on 2 February 1594 after a nine-day siege.  Bagenal and O'Neill gave conflicting accounts of their service against Maguire.  A war of words preceded open hostilities; Bagenal reported to Dublin that O'Neill was in touch with Spain and was recruiting and arming his lordship, while O'Neill claimed that the real beneficiaries of his services to the crown were his enemies.

The struggle for power in Ulster was personalised, and may have been over dramatised by historians. 

… more later …