The victory prompted uprisings all over the country, with the assistance of mercenaries in O'Neill's pay and contingents from Ulster, and it is at this point that the war developed in its full force. Hugh O'Neill appointed his supporters as chieftains and earls around the country, notably James Fitzthomas Fitzgerald as the Earl of Desmond and Florence MacCarthy as the MacCarthy Mór. In Munster as many as 9,000 men came out in rebellion. The Munster Plantation, the colonisation of the province with English settlers, was dealt a serious blow; the colonists, among them Edmund Spenser, fled for their lives.