Richard Pace, Royal Secretary
Richard Pace is King Henry's Secretary at the start of The Tudors, played by Matt Ryan. Answering to Cardinal Wolsey, he diligently carries out the King's- and by extension, the Cardinal's- orders. In episode 1.03, Wolsey accuses him of acting as a French spy, given that France had learned that England was secretly allying against them; he had Pace arrested and thrown in the Tower of London in a cell infested by rats. Pace frantically protested his innocence (truthfully) and even accused Wolsey of having been the spy, since he previously had an arrangement wherein the French paid him a pension to advocate in their interests (an arrangement Wolsey claimed Pace was guilty of). When no evidence could be found against him, Pace was released in episode 1.04, but by that point he had gone insane during his ordeal in the Tower. Wolsey arranged for Pace to be replaced as Royal Secretary by a more talented protege of his, a man named Thomas Cromwell.
Pace apparently had a wife, though she had died in childbirth some years before; during his madness, he claimed she visited him in his cell.
Pace after he goes mad