Fane’s ancestors were established in Kent by the fifteenth century. Fane’s father lived at Badsell, a few miles south-east of Tonbridge, and following his marriage to the daughter and heir of Henry, Lord Bergavenny in 1574 he acquired the manor and castle of Mereworth, seven miles west of Maidstone. Fane himself made an advantageous match in 1599 when he wed the daughter and heir of Sir Anthony Mildmay of Apethorpe, Northamptonshire. Her father was said to enjoy an annual income of £3,000 and her mother a further £1,200 a year. Fane’s own resources were also not inconsiderable; sometime before 1612 the Exchequer calculated his annual income at £3,000, making him one of the richest men in Kent.
Though not the first of his family to sit in Parliament, Fane, in 1601, became the first to serve as a knight of the shire. Shortly after James’s accession he was made a knight of the Bath, but the subsequent disgrace of his patron, the 11th Lord Cobham (Henry Brooke alias Cobham†) meant that at the general election of 1604 he was obliged to transfer to Maidstone. During the first session he was named to two committees concerned with the Buckinghamshire election dispute - one to attend the king (28 Mar.) and the other to draft the House’s reasons for their proceedings (30 March). He was appointed to a further seven bill committees, including one to prevent the conversion of woodland into pasture (28 April).
Fane accompanied the new warden of the Cinque Ports, the earl of Northampton, to Windsor for the latter’s investiture as a knight of the Garter in May 1605.
At the beginning of the third session Fane was appointed to attend a conference on the proposed Union with Scotland (24 Nov. 1606). On 11 Mar. 1607 he chaired a committee for a bill to preserve the woodland around the Kent clothing town of Tenterden from the depredations of the local iron industry, but three days later he reported that because of some ‘mischiefs’ in the bill the committee thought it should be proceeded with no further, to which the House agreed.
Fane’s first committee appointment in the fourth session was for a bill entrusted to Nicholas Fuller* to enable his wife’s uncle, Humphrey Mildmay†, to break the entail of his estate (20 Feb. 1610). When Fuller introduced two ecclesiastical bills on 8 Mar. 1610, Fane complained of his tardiness over the Mildmay bill. However, progress was further delayed by Fane himself, who left Westminster in order to mediate between the parties. On 26 Mar. Fuller made his report and Fane was given a copy of the bill. Presumably he made no further objection, as it was engrossed two days later.
Fane used his influence to secure the return of his kinsman Thomas Culpeper for the Wiltshire borough of Chippenham in March 1614.
Fane entered into his wife’s inheritance in 1617. Even before acquiring Apethorpe, however, he had begun to play a part in Northamptonshire. He hunted there extensively from at least 1609,
At the next election the Apethorpe interest secured the return of Fane’s son Mildmay for Peterborough, but he himself sat again for Maidstone in the third Jacobean Parliament. During the first sitting he was named to 16 committees, including the privileges committee (5 Feb. 1621) and frequently intervened in debate. He was especially concerned to gather support for a fen drainage bill, and at one point he, his son and Francis Russell allegedly offered the Cambridgeshire Member Sir Edward Peyton £10,000 not to oppose it.
When Parliament resumed in the autumn, many Members were surprised at the absence of Sir Edwin Sandys, who had recently been released after his arrest following the previous sitting. On Fane’s proposal, an entry was made in the Journal of the assurance from Secretary Calvert that Sandys had not been secluded for anything said or done in Parliament.
After the Parliament ended, a bitter dispute developed between Fane and his neighbour Montagu, now Lord Montagu of Boughton. The immediate cause was a grant of timber from Rockingham forest for the enlargement of Apethorpe ‘for the more commodious entertainment of His Majesty and his company at his repair into those parts for his princely recreation’. On 7 May 1622 lord treasurer Cranfield (Sir Lionel Cranfield*) ordered the local forest officials to expedite the business, styling Fane, an under-keeper, lieutenant of the forest of Rockingham. This provoked an angry response from Montagu, who pointed out that he was in fact lieutenant, under the earl of Exeter (Sir Thomas Cecil†), and adding that he had stayed execution of the order, since it had not been directed to the proper officers. Fane then seems to have circulated a broadsheet denouncing Montagu’s high-handedness, and styling him ‘the grand promoter or informer of this country’ and ‘a dangerous, awful man’. According to Chamberlain, Montagu felt he had grounds for an action of scandalum magnatum in Star Chamber. Fane appealed to the king, and on 28 Oct. Montagu was summoned to appear before James at Royston. An outward reconciliation was effected, but ill feeling in the county remained.
Fane sat for Peterborough in the 1624 Parliament and was named to nine committees, including the committee for privileges (23 Feb.) and one for the bill to outlaw monopolies (26 February). On 3 Mar. he was one of those ordered to manage a conference on an address asking for a declaration of war on Spain. He was appointed to a committee to draft a bill for more efficient local defence (16 Apr.), and on 28 Apr. he was added to the committee to consider a bill to drain property in Erith and Plumstead marshes, in which he presumably had a close interest.
At the end of the year Fane was created earl of Westmorland, doubtless on Williams’ recommendation. His choice of the title forfeited by his mother’s distant cousin in 1571 occasioned some delay.