returning north. In response, the crown forces were gathered under the command of Sir Henry Bagenal, who launched an expedition into Monaghan, then Fermanagh, to crush Maguire and his allies, receiving his commission on 11 September 1593. Bagenal had under his command 144 horse, 763 foot, and 118 kern, to which O'Neill was to bring a further 200 horse and 1,200 foot. Bagenal entered Fermanagh on 22 September and was joined by O'Neill four days later. Unable to make a crossing of the River Erne, Bagenal and O'Neill marched (separately) northwards to the northern end of Lower Lough Erne. Blocking forces were posted by Maguire at the ford of Belleek, but these were overcome by Bagenal and O'Neill at the Battle of Belleek on 10 October. 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 and that his ambition was to usurp her authority 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 February 1595, with an assault on the Blackwater Fort, which guarded a strategic bridge on the River Blackwater. Later in 1595 O'Neill and O'Donnell wrote to King Philip II of Spain for help, and offered to be his vassals. He also proposed that his cousin Archduke Albert be made Prince of Ireland, but nothing came of this. A truce in late 1595 was followed by the submission of Hugh Maguire in April 1596, and Tyrone promised to explain his conduct before the Queen in London, but the arrival of three Spanish envoys from Philip II in 1596 promising men and supplies ended any chances of peace. An unsuccessful armada sailed in 1596; the war in Ireland became a part of the wider Anglo-Spanish War. Irish victory at Yellow Ford The English authorities in Dublin Castle had been slow to comprehend the scale of the rebellion. After failed negotiations in 1595, English armies tried to break into Ulster but were repulsed by a trained army including musketeers in prepared positions; after