ants were soon compelled to beg for mercy, but Dempster ordered them to be imprisoned in the belfry, where they remained for some time in fetters. Their horses, which they had left at the gates, were killed by Dempster's orders. When the three officers were set at liberty, they caused inquiries to be made respecting Dempster's moral character, with such damaging results that there was no resource open to him but flight, for which King James's invitation afforded an honourable pretext.
In London Dempster married an English lady, whose name and surname he disguises under the Latin form of Susanna Valeria. His stay in England was of short duration, for the English clergy, among whom Dempster mentions Montague, bishop of Bath, expostulated with the king for according his protection to a professed catholic. Dempster was therefore advised to seek a more congenial shelter in Italy. On arriving at Rome he was imprisoned for one night on suspicion of being a bearer of secret letters; but his credentials were found satisfactory, and he departed to Florence, carrying letters of recommendation from the pope and the cardinals to Cosmo II, grand duke of Tuscany. The duke appointed him professor of civil law in the university of Pisa, with a handsome stipend, and defrayed the expenses of his journey to England for the purpose of bringing home his wife. It appears that on his return he ventured, notwithstanding his recent troubles, to pass through Paris, for Rossi tells the story that his wife, walking through the streets of that city with her shoulders bare, attracted such a crowd of gazers that she and her husband had to take refuge in a house to avoid being crushed to death. In the same year (1616) Dempster made a second visit to London, partly to purchase books which the grand duke authorised him to obtain at his cost for use in the preparation of his great work on ‘Etruria,’ and on 9 Nov. he delivered his inaugural lecture.
Dempster continued to hold the Pisan professorship for three years, during which he completed the ‘Etruria,’ and presented the manuscript to the grand duke. His own account of the causes which led to his leaving Pisa is very obscure, but receives some elucidation from a comparison with the statements of Rossi. The true history of the affair appears to be that his wife had deserted him, and that he publicly accused a certain Englishman of having decoyed her away. The Englishman procured an order from the grand duke that Dempster should either withdraw the charge or depart from the Tuscan dominions. Dempster refused to do either, and was imprisoned, first at Florence and then at Pisa. He was liberated without having made the retractation demanded of him; but (according to his own story) the friends of the Englishman attempted his assassination, and after fruitless attempts to regain the favour of the duke he left Pisa with the intention of returning to his native country. Passing through Bologna, he called upon Cardinal Capponi, then papal governor of that city. Capponi, who had been at school with Dempster at Rome, implored him to change his purpose, and, hastily summoning a meeting of the ‘senate’ of Bologna, induced that body to offer Dempster the professorship of humanities in their university.
The university of Bologna was at this time the most distinguished university in Italy, and the chair to which Dempster was appointed had by more than one papal decree been declared entitled to precedence over all the other professorships. It seems, however, that the former occupants of the office had been negligent in enforcing their rights, and Dempster's assertion of his superiority in rank was met by fierce opposition on the part of all his colleagues, who excited their students to armed demonstrations in order to intimidate the audacious new-comer. After many months of disorder the dispute was settled in Dempster's favour by a papal decree.
A more serious danger, however, now threatened him from another quarter. His enemy the Englishman denounced him to the inquisition as being a bad catholic, and as having heretical books in his house. Dempster addressed to his accuser a letter, which he describes as ‘bitter and full of righteous sense of injury.’ The Englishman had the letter translated into Italian, and sent it to Rome as the best possible argument in support of his charges. This proceeding answered its purpose; several cardinals were in favour of a condemnation, and the pope himself, as Dempster admits, was angry with him. After eight months had passed Dempster went to Rome, and after several audiences with the pope succeeded in removing the unfavourable impression which the letter had created. The quarrel between Dempster and the Englishman was submitted to the arbitration of two cardinals, and was finally settled by ‘the signing of a document accepted as satisfactory on both sides’—which means, no doubt, that each party formally withdrew his imputations on the other's character. Dempster intimates, however, that he has written a pamphlet containing a full history of his grievances, which, if the Englishman should renew his accusations, he will not hesitate to publish, in order that
