Roderigo Lopez
Roderigo Lopez was a Portuguese physician notable for his controversial life and tragic fate in late 16th-century England. Born the son of a physician to the Portuguese king, he converted to Catholicism, yet he was of Jewish descent and maintained a secret practice of Judaism within his family. After studying medicine at the University of Coimbra, Lopez moved to London where he became a respected physician, serving prominent figures including Queen Elizabeth I. His career took a dramatic turn when he became embroiled in court intrigue and accusations of treason.
Lopez was accused of conspiring to poison the queen, largely due to his connections with Spanish agents during a time of political turbulence involving Portugal and Spain. His conviction for high treason led to a gruesome execution, which was accompanied by a public outcry that reflected the anti-Semitic sentiments of the period. The trial had lasting cultural repercussions, influencing playwrights like Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, whose works echoed prevailing stereotypes about Jews. Lopez's story sheds light on the complexities of identity, loyalty, and the harsh realities faced by those of Jewish heritage in a hostile environment during the Elizabethan era.
Subject Terms
Roderigo Lopez
Physician to Queen Elizabeth I
- Born: 1525
- Birthplace: Portugal
- Died: June 7, 1594
- Place of death: Tyburn, London, England
Major offenses: High treason and conspiracy to poison Queen Elizabeth I
Active: 1591-1594
Locale: London
Sentence: Death by hanging
Early Life
Son of the physician to John III of Portugal, Roderigo Lopez (rahd-REE-goh LOH-pehz), like many formerly Jewish “new Christians,” or conversos (converted ones), was baptized in the Catholic faith. He studied at the University of Coimbra, completing his medical studies in 1544, and moved to London in 1559. His careful work at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital earned him a respectable salary as well as a house and garden. He married the daughter of a London grocer of Portuguese Jewish extraction, and although his children were baptized Anglicans, it seems his family secretly practiced Judaism along with other émigrés.
Medical Career
Lopez had been physician to Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, and was appointed physician to Queen Elizabeth. Lopez is defamed in a Catholic tract as one of Leicester’s henchmen, skilled in poisoning and abortions, in the aftermath of a failed conspiracy to overthrow Philip II of Spain, who had seized Portugal. One of the followers of the attempted coup approached Lopez about poisoning Dom António, the claimant to the Portuguese crown, but Lopez did not do so. Lopez next ran afoul of double agents and court intrigues both abroad and in England. He had served as physician to Sir Francis Walsingham, the head of Elizabeth’s spy network, and seems to have functioned as an intermediary to urge peace talks with Spain and to secure or expel Dom António. A ring was sent to him valued at double his annuity as Elizabeth’s physician. Later this ring would turn out to be incriminating, if circumstantial, evidence of his being in league with Philip II.
Legal Action and Outcome
After Walsingham’s death in 1591, Lopez unofficially continued his association with Spanish contacts. Robert Devereux, the earl of Essex and stepson to Leicester, wanted to fill the power vacuum at court and sought Queen Elizabeth’s acknowledgment that he had saved her from danger. With the aid of the best cryptologist in London, Essex found correspondence that ultimately implicated Lopez in a plot to poison the queen. Additional letters, including one concerning donations to a synagogue in the Spanish Netherlands, made his case grim. Along with two other conspirators, Lopez was convicted of high treason and executed by being hanged, drawn, and quartered.
Impact
Solicitor General Sir Edward Coke, during the case for the prosecution, called Roderigo Lopez “a perjured and murderous villain and Jewish doctor, worse than Judas himself.” Much was made of Lopez’s secret Judaism, anathema in a time when religion was a matter of law. Capitalizing on the public response to the trial, theaters brought back Christopher Marlowe’s play The Jew of Malta (pr. c. 1589, pb. 1633), concerning a prototypical Machiavellian villain, Barabas, who poisons wells and burns convents—thus reviving anxious myths about Jews. William Shakespeare’s company premiered The Merchant of Venice (pr. c. 1596-1597), in which a Jewish usurer, Shylock, seeks to recover the terms of his bond of “a pound of flesh.” The Lopez case contributed to the rationale for deporting foreigners, especially Jews and Africans. Not unrelated, witchcraft prosecutions increased during this volatile decade at the end of Elizabeth’s reign.
Bibliography
Black, J. B. The Reign of Elizabeth. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Links the execution of Lopez to the atmosphere of panic associated with Elizabeth’s fear of assassination and the anti-Catholic measures of 1593.
Green, Dominic. The Double Life of Doctor Lopez. London: Century, 2003. Drawing on the trial records, state papers, and previously unpublished materials, Green argues that Lopez, in addition to being a skilled medical practitioner, was a canny businessman, diplomat, spy, and secret Jew.
Katz, David S. The Jews in the History of England, 1485-1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Detailed reassessment of extant documents of the case, concluding that Lopez was indeed guilty of participating in a conspiracy.
Levin, Carole. The Reign of Elizabeth I. New York: Palgrave, 2002. Discusses the economic and political instability contributing to the discovery of the plot, and suggests that Elizabeth had doubts about Lopez’s guilt.
Pelling, Margaret, with Francis White. Medical Conflicts in Early Modern London. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 2003. Looking primarily at regulatory efforts of the College of Physicians, this social history yields interesting findings about irregular medical practitioners, including Lopez.
Samuel, Edgar. “Roderigo Lopez.” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Presents the subtleties of the conspiracy charges, Lopez’s role as an emissary to Spanish agents, and Essex’s reasons for nurturing a hatred for his former physician.