William Fitzwilliam

A courtier and royal official at Henry VIII's court, Fitzwilliam moves easily among the men who serve the king's will rather than his conscience. Practical, watchful, and useful, he attends to the business of power — negotiations, arrests, the quiet machinery that keeps a dangerous court running — without drawing much attention to himself.

Wolf Hall thrives on men like this: not architects of the era's cruelty but its competent hands, and James Larkin plays Fitzwilliam with the unbothered efficiency of someone who has learned that survival at court means doing the job asked of you and asking few questions. It's a performance built on restraint, and it lands precisely because he never overplays the menace underneath.