During this time he graduated from Cambridge with a MusB and married Lady Frances Knollys on 29 December 1685.
[1] During the Glorious Revolution of 1688 he fled to continental Europe, where he won fame and wealth by his singing.
Upon his arrival at the palace, he was seated in a chair in the middle of a spacious hall, and immediately drawn up to a great height; presently the king with his attendants appeared in a gallery opposite to him, and at the same instant a number of wild bears were turned in; the king bade him then choose whether he would sing or be let down among the bears: Abell chose the former, and declared afterwards that he never sang so well in his life.Daniel Purcell attempted to coax Abell back to England in 1696 for a salary of £500 per year (worth over £1 million in 2019)[note 1] however, he declined.
In Kassel he was made Intendant of Music (1698–1699), before returning to England around 1700, where in 1701 he performed the title role in Daniel Purcell's The Judgment of Paris: in the following year his coronation song for Queen Anne, Aloud proclaim the cheerful sound, was performed.
Furthermore, he wrote and compiled songs in the Italian style of the time, with a collection of his being published in 1701 and another posthumously in 1740.