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, perhaps not of the humblest birth. Walter sent him on to Paris, where other officers of Scottish descent in the French army took up a subscription to place him at the University of Paris. 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. If true, it shows that Brus' motivations were not entirely altruistic. 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. The failure of the invasion left them in place (without much work to do other than intelligence and conspiracy). At the University of Paris Thomas became deathly ill with "the plague" and on recovering was sent by someone in charge of his destiny to the University of Louvain in the Southern Netherlands (now Belgium), to study under Justus Lipsius. Thomas himself gives that as a reason, but otherwise does not have a clear explanation for the change, stating only that Belgium was a "safe refuge". Instead he was diverted from this plan by William Crichton, Jesuit, then Superior of the Scots College, Douai, which is a good indication that forces unknown to young Thomas were at work in his life. He did not matriculate at Louvain. 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. This college was a refuge and rallying point for English Catholics fleeing the re-establishment of Protestantism after the death of Mary I and the accession of Elizabeth I. Mary had won for herself the popular title "Bloody Mary" for her methods in attempting to reimpose Catholicism on England. Philip II, who had been married to Mary 1554–1558, used the seminarians from Douai openly as agents. They were often in England illegally to establish contacts and maintain a bridgehead, so to speak, for reconversion. The mastermind in the strategy to reconquer Great Britain for Catholicism and Spain was that of Philip II. He was supported in this effort by a long series of short-term popes (some very short-term), such as Innocent IX (1591), Gregory XIV (1590–1591), etc., who basically followed his strategy.