Home

Home, the name of one of the oldest and most celebrated of the historic families of Scotland. After the Conquest Cospatrick, the great Earl of Northumberland, took refuge in Scotland, and received from Malcolm Canmore the manor of Dunbar, and large estates in the Merse and the Lothians. Patrick, the second son of the third Earl of Dunbar, inherited from his father the manor of Greenlaw, and having married his cousin, daughter of the fifth earl, obtained with her the lands of Home, from which his descendants took their designation. After the overthrow of the earls of Dunbar and March in 1436 the Homes succeeded to a portion of their vast estates and to a great deal of their power on the eastern Marches. Sir Alexander Home was created a peer by James III.; but, disappointed in his attempt to appropriate the revenues of Coldingham Priory, he joined the disaffected nobles who rebelled against James, and took part in the battle of Sauchieburn, where the king was killed. The second baron obtained estates and important offices from James IV. Along with Lord Huntly he commanded the vanguard of the Scottish army at Flodden, and routed the English right wing. He was almost the only Scottish noble who returned unhurt from that battle. He was induced by fair promises from the Regent Albany to visit Holyrood along with his brother William in 1516, and they were arrested, tried for treason, and condemned and executed. The forfeited title and estates were restored to his brother George in 1522; but, though the family took a prominent part in public affairs during the troublous times of Queen Mary and the great civil war, they never regained their former influence. Their extensive estates dwindled down to a patrimony of 2000 acres, and they sank into insignificance. But the marriage (1532) of the eleventh earl to the heiress of the Douglas estates restored the decayed fortunes of this ancient house. These estates now, according to the Doomsday Book, yield a rental of £47,721 a year.