Rodrigo López (physician)

Roderigo Lopes, Spanish Rodrigo Lopez (* 1525 in Crato, Portugal, † June 7, 1594 in London ), called Doctor Lopus, the personal physician of Queen Elizabeth I Tudor was.

Life

Lopes was the son of Portuguese conversos and came to England in 1559, where he became famous as a specialist in medicine. He treated Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester and Francis Walsingham, and was in 1586 appointed to the highest physician to Queen. His success and his Jewish ancestry earned him many enemies, and in 1594 accused him of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, to have helped in a plot to assassinate António of Crato and the queen. Essex personally sat before the Special Court, the Lopes sentenced to death. He was a few months after the queen had confirmed the sentence, hanged, disembowelled and quartered ( punishment for attempted and completed regicide and treason ). His widow received at the direction of Elizabeth I a corresponding widow's pension, which results in Lopes ' guilt in the eyes of the Queen in doubt.

Lopes is sometimes " The Merchant of Venice " by William Shakespeare considered historical model for the main character " Shylock " in the spectacle.