[Histories of Leslie, Calderwood, and Lindsey of Pitscottie; Cal. State Papers, Henry VIII; Douglas's Scottish Peerage (Wood), i. 735.]
HOME or HUME, Sir GEORGE, Earl of Dunbar (d. 1611), lord high treasurer of Scotland, was the third son of Alexander Home of Manderston, who commanded a body of horse against Queen Mary at Langside in 1568. His mother was Janet, daughter of George Home of Spott. He was brought to court by his relative Alexander, sixth lord Home [q. v.], and by his tact and abilities rapidly acquired favour and influence. At first his name appears in historical documents as George Home of Primroknows, but from the time he received the patrimony of his uncle, George Home of Spott, in 1593, he was known as `of Spott.' On 18 March 1584-5 he was declared innocent of the uccusation brought against him by Home of Wedderburn, of bolding communication with the Rutliven raiders (Reg. P. C. Scotl. iii. 729); and the king's confidence in him was shortly afterwards more conclusively manifested by his being appointed a gentleman of the bed-chamber. He accompanied the king to Denmark in 1589, when he went there to convoy his bride to Scotland (Sir James Melville, Memoirs, p. 372). On 4 Nov, of the following year (Moysie, Memoirs, p.85) he received the honour of knighthood, and he was about the same time made master of the wardrobe, having, according to Sir James Melville, 'shot out quietly William Keith,' earl marischal, from that office (Memoirs, p. 372). As Francis Stewart Hepburn, fifth earl of Bothwell [q. v.], had in 1584 slain his brother David, Home was one of the most steadfast opposers of Bothwell's recall. He was, moreover, a constant friend and ally of the chancellor Maitland. In the articles of agreement drawn up between the king and Bothwell in 1593, Home's name appears among those of the anti-Bothwellians who should be required to absent themselves from court till the meeting of the parliament in November (Calderwood, v. 258). He adhered to the `cubicular courtier' party, and was prominent among those who, on 17 Dec. 1596, through jealousy of the Octavians, stirred up a riot in the streets of Edinburgh. He was one of the special privy councillors chosen on 10 Dec. 1598 to sit in Holyrood Palace on Tuesdays and Thursdays to assist the king in discharge of business. On 31 July 1601 he was appointed one of the componitors to the lord high treasurer (Reg. P. C. Scotl. vi. 276), and on the resignation of the treasurer in the following September he was appointed his successor.
On the accession of James VI to the English throne in 1603, Home attended him in his progress southwards to London. On 1 June of this year he received a grant of the office of keeper of the great wardrobe for life (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1603-10. p. 13), and on 27 Sept a grant of the manor and castle of Norham, and also of the fishings of the river Tweed (ib. p. 41), On 7 July of the following year he was sworn a privy councillor of England, and created an English peer by the title of Baron Home of Berwick; and on 3 July 1605 he was made Earl of Dunbar in the Scottish peerage. From this time Dunbar shared with Lord-chancellor Dunfermline [see Seton, Alexander, Earl of Dunfermline] the chief management of Scottish affairs, being generally retained by the king in England as his chief Scottish adviser, and despatched to Scotland as the king's special representative, when matters of importance were under consideration. If not primarily responsible for initiating the king's ecclesiastical policy in Scotland, he carried out that policy with strenuous zeal and devotion, contriving nevertheless with great dexterity to partly mask his exact aims. He professed to act towards the presbyterians as their mediator with the king in modifying and softening the rigour of his proposals, and succeeded to some extent in persuading them that his mediation was not ineffectual.
Along with the Earl of Dunfermline, Dunbar was sent to Scotland in January 1605-6 to act as assessor in the famous trial at Linlithgow of six of the ministers—for some time warded in Blackness—who had been concerned in holding a general assembly at Aberdeen, contrary to the king's interdict. Dunbar professed to James Melville that to himself personally the mission was a painful one, and that he would give 1,000l. to see the king satisfied without injury to the kirk or the honest men warded in Blackness (Calderwood, vi. 374). These professions were, however, merely intended to facilitate a reconciliation practically on the king's own terms. When his overtures to the ministers were spurned, he did not scruple to strain the law unduly in order to secure a verdict for the king. It was only by a careful selection of the jury, and after much tampering with them, that nine of the fifteen were induced to bring in a verdict of guilty. After the verdict Dunbar used every effort to persuade the ministers to `confess a fault,' assuring them, in such a case, of the king's ready pardon; but, as before, his mediation was rejected. The verdict virtually pronounced it high treason to resist the jurisdiction of the king and council in religious matters. It
