Apparently Crighton had been asked by "the pope": perhaps Pope Sixtus V (1585–1590) to provide Scottish students for seminary study at Rome. 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. He mentions that Cardinal Aldobrandini was raising an army there and calls him also Clement VIII, perhaps in anticipation of later events. Dempster says that he was in a "seminarium Romanum" with "the choicest nobility of Italy", which he would not have been if the Scots College had existed then.