9 Historical Inaccuracies In BBC's Wolf Hall

5. Cromwell Was Ruthless And Extracted Confessions By Torture

Historian Simon Schama has been particularly critical of Wolf Hall's portrayal of Cromwell as a "much-maligned, misunderstood pragmatist" - because the evidence clearly suggests he was anything but. As Schama explains, Cromwell was "a detestably self-serving, bullying monster who perfected state terror in England" - and who continuously called upon torture as a method for extracting confessions from suspects. Despite this, Cromwell is seen throughout the BBC's adaptation as someone who the audience should sympathise with - who is misunderstood and was actually far less callous than history has subsequently portrayed him. Unfortunately for Cromwell, on this count history has actually been correct in how it has depicted him.