A plot in private life may have great public consequences, as every generation can testify. The Helen of the Elizabethan wars was Mabel Bagenal, daughter of Sir Nicholas and sister of Sir Henry, whose charms were at least one principal cause of the Ulster revolt. Tyrone had been first married to a daughter of Sir Brian MacPhelim O'Neill, from whom, according to his own account, he was 'divorced by the orders of the Church.' As to the validity of this divorce there were certainly doubts at the time, but the repudiated wife married again and had children. Tyrone's second venture was with an O'Donnell, and he talked of discarding her too, though possibly without intending to do it. She died, and he then fell in love with Miss Bagenal, whom he might see at Newry as often as he pleased. Bagenal would not consent to the match, and his objections had some weight: the possible opposition of the Queen, 'the incivility of the Earl's country not agreeing with his sister's education, and the uncertainty of a jointure to be allotted for her maintenance after the Earl's death,' being those which seemed important to the Irish Government. Tyrone was a much more civilised being than Shane O'Neill, and Mabel Bagenal was more accustomed to Irish ways than Lady Frances Radclyffe; but Bagenal hated the proposed alliance as much as Sussex. 'I can,' he told Burghley, 'but accurse myself and fortune that my blood, which in my father and myself hath often been spilled in repressing this rebellious race, should now be mingled with so traitorous a stock and kindred.' To keep her out of harm's way, he sent Mabel to her sister, who was married to Sir Patrick Barnewall, and who lived at Turvey near Swords; but Tyrone invited himself to the house for a night, obtained a secret promise of her hand, and presented her with a gold chain worth a hundred pounds. A few days after this he came to Turvey to dine with several friends, and after dinner the young lady slipped away on horseback behind one of them. 'When I understood,' he said, 'that my prey (the language of cattle-lifting) was well forward in her way towards the place where we had agreed upon, I took my leave of Sir Patrick Barnewall and his lady, and followed after, and soon after I was gone, the gentlemen which were in company with me took their horses and came away privately.'[212] [Sidenote: Tyrone's marriage, 1591.]