During Dempster's childhood, his father, who had already been impoverished in consequence of feuds with the Currers and the Grants, suffered the loss of what remained of his ancestral estates. With respect to the occasion of this misfortune, Dempster relates a highly romantic and not altogether credible story. His eldest brother, James, had married his father's mistress, Isabella Gordon, of Achavachi, and on this account had been disinherited by his father. In revenge, he collected a band of his wife's kinsmen, the Gordons, and made an armed attack upon his father as he was making a journey on horseback ‘to administer the affairs of his province,’ accompanied by his servants and some members of his family. A regular battle took place; two men on each side were killed and many were wounded, including the father himself, who received seven bullets in the leg and a sword-cut on the head. After this outrage the elder Dempster, in order to preclude the possibility of his rebellious son ever succeeding to his estates, sold the lands of Muresk to the Earl of Errol, who managed to obtain and keep possession of the property without ever paying the price, ‘because,’ Dempster enigmatically states, ‘my father was unable either to satisfy his claims or to provide sufficient sureties.’ His son Thomas inherited from him ‘the empty title’ of baron and the legal right to the estate, which in after years he endeavoured to establish before the courts, but without success, owing to ‘the absence of the king, the great power of the earl, and the treachery of advocates.’ How it happened that Thomas, being the twenty-fourth child of his father, became heir to the barony, we are not informed. It is said that Dempster frequently represented that he had been deprived of his patrimonial estates on account of his fidelity to the catholic religion, but he does not hint at anything of the kind in his autobiography. The wicked eldest brother eventually reaped the due reward of his parricidal conduct. Being outlawed by royal proclamation, he fled to the Scottish islands, where he engaged in piracy, one of his exploits being burning the Bishop of Orkney out of house and home. He afterwards found military employment in the Low Countries, and for an assault on his superior officer was condemned to be dragged in pieces by four horses.
In his tenth year Dempster quitted Scotland, and became an inmate of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, but shortly afterwards set out for Paris, accompanied by his tutor. On the way he fell into the hands of some French soldiers, who plundered him of his clothing and all his money, and, to add to the misery of his situation, his tutor soon afterwards died. Fortunately he found at Montreuil a Scottish officer in the French army, named Walter Brus, who treated him kindly, and provided him with the means of completing his journey.
Through the generosity of some of his fellow-countrymen, to whom he was recommended at Paris, he was enabled to commence his studies, but before long was attacked by the plague, and for a time his life was despaired of. On his recovery he was sent to Belgium, and entered the university of Louvain, where the famous Justus Lipsius was a professor. Almost immediately after his arrival, however, Dempster had again to set out on his travels. The president of the Scotch college, the jesuit William Crichton, was ordered by the pope to select some of his pupils to continue their education at Rome. Dempster was one of four who were chosen. On their journey he and his companions underwent great hardships and perils on account of the disturbed state of the countries through which they passed, regular communication in Germany and Italy being almost suspended owing to pestilence and civil war. At length, however, they arrived at Rome, and were admitted into the papal seminary, receiving a liberal pension. Almost immediately afterwards Dempster fell dangerously ill, and the physicians, considering that the air of Italy was unfavourable to his recovery, ordered that he should be sent back to Belgium. Arriving at Tournay, he found a patron in his countryman James Cheyne [q. v.], who had formerly been professor at Paris and at Douay. Cheyne sent him to the college at the latter place, and procured for him a pension from the King of Spain and the Archduke Albert. Here he applied himself to his studies with diligence and success. The rigid discipline of the college, however, was not to his taste, and he wished to leave Douay for Paris, but, as he records with gratitude, he was induced by his patron Cheyne to complete his three years' course. One of the incidents of his sojourn at Douay was his publication of an abusive attack on Queen Elizabeth, which excited great indignation among his English fellow-students, and led to a rebellion which had to be suppressed by ecclesiastical authority. On graduating, he took the first prize in poetry and the second in philosophy, and immediately began to teach the humanities at Tournay. Dissatisfied with his prospects there, he migrated to Paris, where he took his degree in canon law, and became professor in the Collège de Navarre, being, according to his own statement, not yet seventeen years of age. After occupying this position a short time,
