During the English Civil War, Lane took the side of the king, who made him Chief Baron of the Exchequer and a member of the Privy Council.
[2] On 28 January 1632 Lane filed a bill of complaint in the Court of Requests against Sir Matthew Brend on behalf of Cuthbert Burbage and the representatives of the other original lessees of the Globe Theatre, seeking an extension of their lease.
[2] Later in 1641 Lane served as defence counsel to Sir Robert Berkeley, who was impeached in October 1641,[2] and from January 1641/42 he defended Archbishop Williams and his eleven fellow bishops who had been imprisoned in the Tower of London.
He entrusted his library and other goods in London to his friend Bulstrode Whitelocke and joined the court at Oxford, where he was made welcome.
In 1643, to punish Lane for his loyalty to Charles I, the Long Parliament gave orders for his estate to be sequestered and all his property at the Middle Temple seized.
[8] In January 1645 Lane acted as one of the king's commissioners at Uxbridge,[1] where he opposed the demand by parliament that it should control the militia.
[2] On 12 October 1646, Parliament made several new appointments to the judicial bench, replacing Lane as chief baron of the exchequer by John Wilde.
He wrote to Charles II, asking him to make his eldest son, another Richard Lane, a groom of the bedchamber, a request which was honoured.