[1][2] He studied Law under his father, and having passed advocate on 3 July 1661, was afterwards appointed one of the commissaries of Edinburgh, and was knighted.
He was elected a Lord of the Articles, and a member of three commissions then appointed; one for trade, another for the plantation of kirks, and a third for the regulation of inferior judicatories.
He died at Edinburgh, after a short illness, on 15 December 1685, and was buried in Greyfriars Kirkyard,[3] where a monument was erected to his memory.
Sir Alexander, second baronet and fourth lord, died without issue, 17 March 1727, when the baronetcy is presumed to have become extinct.
His daughter, Catherine Falconer, married Joseph Home of Chirnside in the County of Berwick, an advocate of Ninewells, and was the mother of David Hume the philosopher and historian.