Nine Years' War (Ireland) - War Breaks Out

War Breaks Out

In 1592 Hugh Roe O'Donnell had driven an English sheriff, Captain Willis, out of his territory, Tir Chónaill (now part of County Donegal). In 1593, Maguire and O'Donnell had combined to resist Willis’ introduction as Sheriff into Maguire’s Fermanagh and begun attacking the English outposts along the southern edge of Ulster. Initially O'Neill assisted the English, hoping to be named as Lord President of Ulster himself. Elizabeth I, though, had feared that O'Neill had no intention of being a simple landlord. Rather, his ambition was to usurp her sovereignty and be "a Prince of Ulster". For this reason she refused to grant O'Neill provincial presidency or any other position which would have given him authority to govern Ulster on the crown’s behalf. Once it became clear that Henry Bagenal was marked to assume the presidency of Ulster, O'Neill accepted that an English offensive was inevitable, and so joined his allies in open rebellion in 1595 with an attack on the English fort on the Blackwater river.

Later in 1595 O'Neill and O'Donnell wrote to King Philip II of Spain for help, offered to be his vassals and proposed that his cousin Archduke Albert be made Prince of Ireland, but nothing came of this. Philip II replied encouraging them in January 1596. An unsuccessful armada sailed in 1596, followed by an equally unsuccessful English counter-armada; the war became a part of the wider Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604).