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Throughout the period of
the Border wars, forays and feuds (roughly from 1300 to 1600) the
leading family on the Eastern March (now Berwickshire) were the Homes,
and it is fair to say they, still are. The first recorded member of the
family is Aldon of Home, steward of the Earls of Dunbar in the late 12th
century. He is mentioned in a number of charters together with his son
Gilbert of Home, who granted some land to the monks of Kelso to settle
an existing property dispute — this however flared up repeatedly in
successive generations. A great-grandson (probably) of Gilbert of Home
was the first to be called "Lord of Home" but this, at the
time, meant no more than "laird"; the first to receive a
peerage as a "Lord of Parliament" was Sir Alexander Home in
1473. He took part in the lynching of Robert Cochrane and other royal
favourites at Lauder Brig in 1483; a few years later his grandson, the
second Lord Home, was one of the leaders of the rising against James III
and thereafter a close associate of James lV. The third Lord Home, his
son, led the Borderers in the successful part of the battle of Flodden
and brought the remnants of the Scottish army back to Edinburgh. He was
beheaded for treason in 1516, having fallen foul of the Duke of Albany
whom he had invited over from France to take over as Regent, and was
eventually succeeded by his brother George as fourth Lord Home (the
first three were all called Alexander, like the present Lord and 14th
Earl — the Christian name of George, presumably because of its English
connotations, is extremely rare among the Scottish aristocracy).
George’s grandson
(again Alexander) was the sixth Lord and first Earl; like Robert Cart
(Somerset), Robert Kerr (Ancram) and many others, he followed James VI
& I to England. After the death of the second Earl the title passed
to descendants of John Home, brother of the second Lord. The present
Lord Home, as 14th Earl. was the last peer to hold the office of Prime
Minister, for a few days in 1963, the previous last having been the
Marquess of Salisbury in the early years of this century; however, by
that time, it was no longer possible for a Prime Minister to sit in the
Lords as the job now involved frequent statements and speeches in the
Commons, He therefore renounced his peerage and contested a by-election
which conveniently happened to be pending in Kinross & West
Perthshire. In his year as Prime Minister he did much to restore
Conservative morale, which had fallen to a very low ebb, and narrowly
lost the General Election on the day when Khrushchev was dismissed from
office by the Soviet Politburo and when China exploded her first nuclear
device. (Had these events occurred a few hours earlier, in time to be
known to the British public, the voters’ "safety reflex"
would probably have kept Sir Alec Douglas-Home in office.) The Tories
seemed to be on their way back when Sir Alec was suddenly replaced as
party leader the fight went out of them and they only returned to office
in 1970. Sir Alec then served with distinction as Foreign Secretary, the
post which he had held before the Premiership he later returned to the
Upper House as Lord Home of the Hirsel since, under the law which
allowed him to "disclaim" his earldom in 1963, he could not
"reclaim" it on retiring from "active" politics. He
was created a Knight of the Thistle in 1962. |
