Thomas Dempster
Thomas' brother James, outlawed for an attack on his father, spent some years as a pirate in the northern islands, escaped by volunteering for military service in the Low Countries and was drawn and quartered there for insubordination.
[4] to Thomas Dempster, Laird of Muiresk or Muresk, and Jean Leslie, a daughter of Willam Lesley, 9th Baron of Balquhain, Auchterless and Killesmont, and sheriff (until 1586) of Banff and Buchan.
Thomas was shot several times in the legs and suffered a sword blow to the head, as a result of which James became an outlaw, surviving by banditry in Shetland and Orkney.
However, a good Samaritan stepped forward: Walter Brus, an officer in the French army, who was of Scottish descent, and judging from the name, perhaps not of the humblest birth.
[9] According to the structure of the university at the time, Thomas would have entered the Scots College there; the fact that the subscription was of Scottish officers indicates that that is the most likely possibility.
The Scots Colleges abroad were being used as training and staging areas for Scottish priests intended to enter Scotland in the wake of the invading army and play the most significant role in its reconversion.
[12] Instead he was diverted from this plan by William Crichton, Jesuit,[13] then Superior of the Scots College, Douai, which is a good indication that forces unknown to young Thomas were at work in his life.
The University of Douai was founded by Philip II of Spain as part of his military build-up against England and was at first identical to the English College there.
In the latter part of the 16th century, deeming that the reconversion structure needed strengthening, the popes established a number of Scots Colleges, typically through the Jesuits.
The Scots College at Rome did not receive its foundation bull from Clement VIII until 1600, but the request specifically for Scotsmen evidences an early interest in that direction.
How Crighton got Dempster's name remains as unknown as why he was deported from Paris, but Thomas was one of four selected and did not enroll at Louvain, but journeyed straight to Rome.
After an arduous and dangerous journey north of the Alps he connected at Tournai with James Cheyne, a member of his network of Scottish patrons.
Securing funding from "the king of Spain", who must have been Philip II, and "Archduke Albert",[15] Cheyne sent him to the Scottish College, Douai, from which, after a few years, he graduated.
The name of Thomas Demster appears as Item Number 64 in the Register of Alumni for the college, applying to the year 1593, with a very brief entry next to his name, "etiam seminarii alumnus."
He soon left Paris for Toulouse, which in turn he was forced to leave by the hostility of the city authorities, aroused by his violent assertion of university rights.
A short stay in Spain, as tutor to the son of Marshal de Saint Luc, was terminated by another quarrel; and Dempster returned to Scotland in 1608 with the intention of claiming his father's estates.
Finding his relatives unsympathetic, and falling into heated controversy with the Presbyterian clergy, he returned to Paris in 1609, where he remained for seven years, becoming professor in several colleges.
At this point the story skips over a small matter, intentionally or not, that might well explain Thomas' future apparent inability to settle in one place, even as a renowned and successful scholar.
Even though England was totally safe for him, and he had already been preferred by a king who admired him, and had married an English girl, complaining that he was not accepted by the Protestants and could not find advancement because of them he set sail for Rome with his wife.
However, the good pope changed his mind shortly, perhaps still hoping to reconvert the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and decided accept the matter graciously, placing Thomas in Italy.
He used his influence with Cosimo II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, to get Thomas appointed to the professorship of the Pandects at Pisa.
Violent accusations followed, indignantly repudiated; a diplomatic correspondence ensued, and a demand was made, and supported by the grand duke, for an apology, which the professor refused to make, preferring to lose his chair.
Though his Roman Antiquities and Scotia ilustrior had been placed on the Index pending correction, Pope Urban VIII made him a knight and gave him a pension.
It was in Bologna that Thomas made friends with Matteo Pellegrini, who was to complete his autobiography posthumously and described "Dempsterus" as a man "outstanding in body and mind: his height was above the average height of the common man: his hair was nearly black and the colour of his skin not far from that: his head was huge and the carriage of his body completely regal; his strength and ferocity were as outstanding as that of a soldier ...."[17] Thomas was not to enjoy his honours long.
[21] It came out in two volumes, folio, at Florence, 1723–1724, under the comprehensive title: A Latin dedication to Cosimo III, dated 1725, London, was added in 1726 by Coke.
