George Home, 1st Earl of Dunbar

Home was the third son of Sir Alexander Home of Manderston, Berwickshire, by his spouse Janet, daughter of George Home of Spott. He was introduced, at the age of 26, to the Court of sixteen-year-old James VI by a relative, Alexander Home, 6th Lord Home. Establishing himself as a favourite, he was in the retinue which accompanied King James VI to Norway and Denmark to collect his future Queen. James Melville of Halhill mentions that Home did not sail with the king, but in one of three other ships, along with Lewis Bellenden, John Carmichael, the Provost of Lincluden, William Keith of Delny, James Sandilands, and Peter Young.[1]

During the trip, James VI made him Keeper of the Royal Wardrobe and sacked William Keith of Delny, who had appeared in richer clothing than himself.[2] In 1606, when making him Earl of Dunbar, James VI praised him for his tact and diplomacy in Denmark at this time, his "high prudence and rare discretion."[3]

He was knighted on 4 November 1590, when Alexander Lindsay was made Lord Spynie,[4] and known as "Sir George Home of Primrose Knowe",[5] and after 1593, as "Sir George Home of Spot". Spott is a village in East Lothian. Home had a feud with the previous owner James Douglas. James VI gave Home the rest of the lands of Spott and made them barony for Sir George Hume on 10 June 1592, requesting that Spott castle be the chief residence of the baron, and a feudal duty of a primrose to delivered at Primroseknowe every 25 March.[6]

In the 1590s Home presided over an arrangement where clothes and textiles for the royal households were provided by the goldsmith Thomas Foulis and merchant Robert Jousie, partly financed by money sent as a gift or subsidy to James VI by Queen Elizabeth.[7] Home had a role in financing the household of Anne of Denmark giving her £3833 Scots in 1591, and in 1592 a dividend of £4000 from her dowry which had been invested in various Scottish towns. He was in charge of paying her Danish servants who were owed fees by the Scottish exchequer, totalling £1,200 in 1592.[8]

In November 1592 Home was identified with friends of the Duke of Lennox, Colonel William Stewart, the Laird of Dunipace, Thomas Erskine, and James Sandilands, as a supporter of the king's former favourite James Stewart, Earl of Arran, working for his rehabilitation to the disadvantage of the Chancellor, John Maitland and the Hamilton family. The English diplomat Robert Bowes called this group the "four young and counselling courtiers."[9]

In December 1592 he rode with Sir John Carmichael with news of the crisis caused by the discovery of the Spanish blanks to Alloa Tower, where James VI and Anna of Denmark were celebrating the wedding of the Earl of Mar and Marie Stewart.[10]

In November 1593 Anna of Denmark complained that people around the king were speaking disrespectfully of her. James asked Home to be watchful of the queen's honour. Robert Bowes wrote that Home himself was suspected of speaking against the queen, and Burghley endorsed this, adding "The wolf to be a watchman."[11]

Home was involved in the preparations for the baptism of Prince Henry at Stirling Castle in 1594. He was given £4,000 Scots from the queen's dowry which had been invested with Perth town council. The money was for mending the royal tapestries, making tablecloths for the banquets and the desks in the chapel, and upholstering stools and chairs. The tapestries were repaired by George Stachan or Strathauchin and William Beaton, the court embroiderer, made the other items.[12]

With the king, at Linlithgow Palace, he interviewed a woman from Nokwalter in Perth, Christian Stewart, who was accused of causing the death of Patrick Ruthven by witchcraft. She confessed she had obtained a cloth from Isobel Stewart to bewitch Patrick Ruthven. She was found guilty of witchcraft and burnt on Edinburgh's Castlehill in November 1596.[13] In 1598 he was appointed a Privy Counsellor, and the following year appears as Sheriff of Berwick-upon-Tweed, (by then in England).

In October 1600 James VI visited his house at Spott and was banqueted. The "merry" party included Sir Robert Ker, the Duke of Lennox, Sir Thomas Erskine, and Sir David Murray. The English courtier Roger Aston noted that all the gentlemen of the chamber there were "inward" with one another and with Home, who was the most "inward" with the king. Aston took the opportunity to ride to Berwick-upon-Tweed to see his friends.[14]

In 1601 he was made Master of the King's Wardrobe, and on 31 July the same year was appointed one of the Componitors to the Lord High Treasurer, and acceded to that position in September. In 1601 he was also made Provost of Dunbar.

Upon James's accession as James I of England in 1603, Home accompanied his sovereign to Westminster, where he became Chancellor of the Exchequer (and ex officio the Second Lord of the Treasury) from 1603 to 1606. In 1603 he was also appointed to the Privy Council of England, and on 1 June that year received a grant as Keeper of the Great Wardrobe for life. On 7 July 1604 he was created Baron Hume of Berwick in the Peerage of England. In 1605 he was appointed a Knight of the Garter, and on 3 July was created Earl of Dunbar in the Peerage of Scotland. There is evidence that he took a part in the interrogation of Guy Fawkes in the immediate aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

Of these, on 27 September 1603 Home received the manor and castle of Norham, with its fishing rights on the River Tweed. On 12 December a Royal Charter gave him the custody and captaincy of the Castle of St Andrews. In July 1605 he had a confirmation of all the lands previously granted to him incorporated and combined into a free earldom, Lordship of Parliament, and Barony of Dunbar.

In 1608, Home journeyed to Scotland with George Abbot to arrange to promote the Episcopal Church, and to seek some sort of union between the Church of England and Church of Scotland. King James was pleased with the initial results, although the hoped-for Union never occurred and the gulf between the King and the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland widened. In July 1605 some nineteen ministers assembled at Aberdeen in defiance of the King's prohibition against the General Assembly meeting. Six of them were subsequently imprisoned in Blackness Castle near Linlithgow, and there, on 10 January 1606, the Earl of Dunbar came from London to be present at their trial and to act as the assessor. Everything was done that could be done by him to win a verdict for the King against the six ministers and it is said that he "brought plenty of money with him to purchase a verdict". In addition, the Earl himself selected the 15 jurymen, five of whom were Homes, his relatives. But even then the jury could not agree. In the end it was a majority verdict of nine against six in favour of the guilty verdict. Regardless of the irregularities, the verdict stood, and established the law that it was High Treason for any minister of the Established Church to dispute the authority of the King and the Privy Council in religious matters.

In 1590 he married Elizabeth Gordon, daughter of Alexander Gordon of Gight[21] and Agnes Beaton, daughter of Cardinal David Beaton, Archbishop of St. Andrews, and Marion Ogilvy.

The English ambassador Robert Bowes commented on Elizabeth's Gordon's arrival at court in June 1590. Bowes said she was the heiress of Gight, and her mother, Agnes Beaton, by now Lady Auchindoun, had brought her to court and that George Home was likely to marry her. She became a lady in waiting to Anna of Denmark. James VI and Anna of Denmark bought her an elaborate purple velvet gown with satin sleeves and skirt in November 1590, perhaps for her marriage.[22]

Their children were:

• Anne Home (d. 1621), who married Sir James Home of Whitrig (d. between 1614–1620) in 1602.[23] Their son became James Home, 3rd Earl of Home.
• Elizabeth Home, who married Theophilus Howard, 2nd Earl of Suffolk.
• A son who died in 1604.[24]

The Earl of Dunbar died in Whitehall, London, in 1611, without male issue, whereupon the earldom and the barony became dormant.

His body was embalmed, but his funeral service did not take place in Westminster until April, after which his body was placed in a lead coffin and sent to Scotland where it was buried under the floor of Dunbar parish church, midway between the font and the pulpit. A magnificent monument, said to be finer than any in Westminster Abbey, was erected in his honour, which is still the distinguishing feature of the interior of this church.

• Holy Jesus Hospital
• Drawing of Berwick Castle, showing remaining tower of the Earl of Dunbar's house, British Museum

• George Home, Earl of Dunbar, three lectures by the Reverend J Kirk, MC, CF, (Minister of Dunbar Parish Church 1913-1918), Edinburgh, 1918.
• MSS of Colonel Mordaunt-Hay of Duns Castle, Historical Manuscripts Commission, collection no. 5, 1909, page 66, number 180. His lordship is cited as deceased, and although the daughters are mentioned, there is nothing to indicate either of them assuming the peerage.
• The Complete Peerage by G. E. Cockayne, revised & enlarged by the Hon. Vicary Gibbs, edited by H. Arthur Doubleday, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, vol.vi, London, 1926, pp. 510–11.