I would like to know what could happen if a man lived during the 16th century at the time of King Henry 8th as a courtier who had links with the king, and had eternal life through something he had done? How would he adapt to each century change? This is for an arts project I am doing, and have been asked to draft together a fantasy story from the 16th century to 2001.. Any input would be most helpful. Many thanks.

maybe he could have been cured of the "king's evil" (Scrufula) by having come into contact with the King? Perhaps the divine power of the king could give him eternal life!

Well I know that this is a bit off-topic but one way of thinking about it is the way Anne Rice proposes in her interview with the vampire novels. One of the greatest threats to her vampire characters is to their sanity, they simply can't cope with the different ages that they live through and need to find contemporary companions to help them understand the times they are living in, the art, culture etc. It's interesting that a vampiric character, one that has no conection with the world any more, one that doesn't eat or sleep , one that lives off mortal people, still needs to connect on some metaphysical level. I would imagine a 16th Century man would have immense difficulty living through other times and mentally and emotionally evolving. One book I think you should read is Erich Fromm's Fear of Freedom, he says that the 16th Century is the time when the modern mentality was born. Feudalism had come to an end and a sort of nascent capitalism was shaking the social order in the Western World. The first challenge to man's view of himself, argues Fromm was the Rennaissance, and the response to the Rennaisance was the Reformation. Fromm also argues that our sense of social position changed, a degree (minor in our view but significant in theirs) of social mobility began and concepts such as fame or notoriety began to occur to people (Henry VIII was very interested in his public persona, he craved glory and status). If you want think about how a tudor person would fit in to our world now, it's just possible they might recognise fragments of these changes.