He served as private secretary to Neville Chamberlain in the negotiations with Hitler from 1937 to 1940. Various ministerial offices followed before his appointment as Foreign Secretary under Harold Macmillan in 1960. When Macmillan resigned in 1963, Douglas-Home became Prime Minister, relinquishing his hereditary peerage as 14th Earl of Home (to which he had succeeded in 1951). His government was defeated by the Labour Party in the 1964 elections. Douglas-Home later served as Foreign Secretary under Edward Heath (1970–74).