Richard Lane (barrister)

Sir Richard Lane (1584–1650) was an English barrister who practised mostly in the Court of Exchequer. He acted as defence counsel to the Earl of Strafford when he was impeached and attainted, and also represented Archbishop Williams and eleven other bishops who were imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1642.

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. From 1645 until his death he was also Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, although after 1646 the appointment was a nominal one, as the Great Seal had been destroyed on the orders of Parliament.

He negotiated the terms of Charles I's surrender to Fairfax in 1646, went into exile with the future Charles II, and died on the island of Jersey in 1650.

Lane was the eldest son of another Richard Lane, who was a yeoman at Courteenhall, Northamptonshire, by his marriage to Elizabeth, the daughter of Clement Vincent of Harpole. He was baptised on 12 November 1584. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was a scholar from 1602. On 8 February 1605, he was admitted to the Middle Temple to train for a career in the law and was called to the bar on 22 November 1611.

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