a few years before Clan Leslie joined with Clan Gordon in their feud against Clan Forbes. The Leslies were supporters of Mary, Queen of Scots, a Catholic, a history which may or may not be connected with later accusations that Thomas was an intelligencer for James I. Andrew Ogston was appointed as Thomas Dempster's tutor. Dempster wrote that he learned the alphabet from Ogston in a single hour at age three. He may have been older; in any case, Andrew recognised talent in his pupil. He sent him to Grammar School in Aberdeen, and in 1588 at the age of ten (or 14) Thomas left home to enter Pembroke Hall, Cambridge. Family feud Meanwhile, his father Thomas Dempster of Muresk had taken a mistress, Isabella, from Clan Gordon, which must have been a bitter blow to Jean Leslie. Apparently Isabella charmed not only Thomas but his eldest son James Dempster, who married her. Thomas Dempster disinherited him. James Dempster and a band of Gordons waylaid Thomas and his party on the road between his estates. 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. The younger Thomas' uncle, John Dempster, an Edinburgh lawyer, insisted he be educated abroad to remove him from the environment. The elder Dempster continued to make decisions that were the ruin of the family. Clan feuding was an expensive activity from which every clan suffered. The elder Thomas had already lost much of his estate to pay for feuds with Clan Currer and Clan Grant. He decided now to sell the estate at Muiresk to the Earl of Erroll to prevent his eldest son from ever inheriting it. The earl took advantage of some fine print in the law, now obscure, to evade payment. Education abroad Scots College of Paris Thomas and tutor started out for Paris. He was ten in the most precocious dating scheme, possibly as old as 14 in others. They had no sooner reached the continent when they were robbed of all their possessions and probably beaten as well, as Ogston died not long after. Their assailants remain unknown except that they were French soldiers. However, a good Samaritan stepped forward: Walter Brus, an officer in the French army, who was of Scottish descent, and judging from the name,