Earl of Home


Earl of Home is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1605 for Alexander Home, 6th Lord Home. The Earl of Home holds, among others, the subsidiary titles of Lord Home, and Lord Dunglass, in the Peerage of Scotland; and Baron Douglas, of Douglas in the County of Lanark in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Various Earls of Home have also claimed the title of Lord Hume of Berwick. The Earl is also Chief of the Name and Arms of Home and heir general to the House of Douglas. The title Lord Dunglass is the courtesy title of the eldest son of the Earl.
The most famous recent holder of the title was the 14th Earl, Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, better known as Sir Alec Douglas-Home. After the unexpected resignation of Harold Macmillan, the 14th Earl was named Prime Minister by the monarch. For the first time in over sixty years, a sitting Prime Minister was a member of the House of Lords rather than of the House of Commons. Because he believed that it was impractical and unconventional to remain a member of the Lords, the Earl disclaimed his peerages on 23 October 1963 under the Peerage Act passed in the same year. He then contested the House of Commons seat of Kinross and Western Perthshire by standing in the 1963 Kinross and Western Perthshire by-election. The seat had been vacated by the death of the previous Member of Parliament, Gilmour Leburn. the titles are held by the 15th Earl, who succeeded in 1995.
The family seats are The Hirsel, near Coldstream, Berwickshire and Castlemains, near Douglas, South Lanarkshire. Former seats include Dunglass Castle and Bothwell Castle in the care of the state.

Origins

The Earls of Home descend in the male-line from Cospatric I, the Anglo-Danish Earl of Northumbria. His descendant William de Home, adopted the surname following his acquisition of the lands of Home in Berwickshire in the early 13th century, through his marriage to his second cousin Ada. William's arms featured the silver lion of Dunbar but with a green field instead of a red field, in reference to his lands of Greenlaw.

Lords Home (1473)

The heir apparent is the present holder's son Michael David Alexander Douglas-Home, Lord Dunglass.

Arms