# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Home, Alexander (d.1506)

​HOME or HUME, Sir ALEXANDER, second Baron Home (d. 1506), was the eldest son of Alexander, master of Home, by his wife Elizabeth Home. During the lifetime of his grandfather, Sir Alexander Home, first Baron Home [q. v.], he was known as Alexander Home of Home, under which designation he sat in parliament in February 1483-4 and May 1485. He was appointed a commissioner to settle disputes on the marches, 8 Oct. 1484, and again to treat about a truce with England in 1485. With his relatives he joined the part of the prince (afterwards James IV) against James III, and he was one of the envoys sent by that party in May 1488 to ask assistance from England (Cal. Documents relating to Scotland, iv. 1539). After the assassination of James III Home was on 7 Oct. 1488 sworn a privy councillor and constituted lord high chancellor for life. On 25 Aug. he was appointed warden of the east marches for seven years (Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. i. 1893), and in that capacity concluded at Coldstream on 23 Oct. the ratification with the English envoys of a treaty for three years (Cal. Documents relating to Scotland, iv. 1534). He had the custody of the castle of Stirling and the government of the king’s brother John, earl of Mar, committed to him on 10 Jan. 1489-90 for nine years (Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. i. 1919). The revenues of the earldom of Mar and Garioch were assigned for his support on the following 28 April. On 12 Jan. of the same year he had a charter of the office of balliary of Ettrick Forest. His father died in 1468, and he succeeded his grandfather as second baron Home in 1491. In 1493 he made a pilgrimage to Canterbury, a safe-conduct being granted him to pass through England by Henry VII. In the winter of 1496-1497 Home and his followers, in support of Perkin Warbeck, the pretender to the English throne, made an inroad into England, and in the spring Surrey retaliated by burning Ayton Castle in Berwickshire and other of their strongholds. Shortly afterwards Warbeck set sail from England for the continent, and on 5 July 1497 Home concluded negotiations for a truce between Scotland and England (Cal. Documents relating to Scotland, iv. 1635). On 19 Dec. 1502 he was appointed one of the commissioners to exchange a ratification of treaties with England (ib. p. 1696). He died in 1506. By his wife Nicolas, daughter of Sir George Ker of Samuelston, Haddingtonshire, who married secondly Sir Alexander Ramsay, he had one daughter and seven sons. Of the sons, Alexander, the eldest, succeeded his father as third baron Home [q. v.]; George, became fourth baron Home [q. v.]; John, abbot of Jedburgh, was banished beyond the Tay; David, prior of Coldingham, was led into an ambush by the Hepburns and slain, and William was executed for treason in 1516, the day after his brother Alexander perished. The other sons died young.
[Rymer’s Fœdera, vol. xii.; Acta. Parl. Scot. Vol. ii.; Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. Vol. i.; Cal. Documents relating to Scotland, vol. iv.; Histories of Buchanan, Leslie, and Lindsay of Pitscottie; Douglas’s Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 733-4; Crawfurd’s Officers of State. Crawfurd wrongly treats the second lord and his son the third lord as one person.]
T. F. H.