The queen's doctor: The Roderigo Lopez affair

Sir William Wade (Waad in older English spelling) worked most of his life in the employ of  Queen Elizabeth I's and King James I's governments. Among his roles, we discovered last time, was that of spy, and as we learned a few posts back, he also served as lieutenant of the Tower of London. His service in this last role brought about the execution of one of England's most infamous conspirators, Guy Fawkes.

Because he served as a member of Parliament in the House of Commons, he earned an entry in the massive History of Parliament, which has its own website if you're curious. His role in Fawkes' death and his time are among the many items listed in this brief biography, which also mentions that he "played a significant role in failing the Babington and Lopez plots."

Unfortunately, the History maddeningly fails to provide any details about Wade's involvement nor does any of the sources I consulted while researching the plots he's connected with. Whatever his role, in the case of  Roderigo Lopez, chief physician to Elizabeth, he may have helped condemn an innocent man.

Lopez was born in Portugal in 1517 to a Jewish physician. Unfortunately for his family, Jews were persecuted at this time and many, if not most, converted to Catholic Christianity, whether willingly or by force. This did not satisfy the church, and an inquisition  took place with the primary objective of rooting out converts thought to still practice Judaism in private. This forced most of them to leave the country, Lopez's family among them.

Before leaving Lopez gained an impressive education in Portugal and became a physician, an occupation he continued in London. He joined the Anglican church and was baptized but his family's Jewish origins seem to have been relatively well known. England had expelled all the Jews in 1290, but some had come to the country from various other places because they professed conversion to Christianity, not always genuinely.

Lopez's skill as a physician gained him attention and perhaps a bit of tolerance for his Jewish roots. Besides, as happens from time to time in history, Jewish physicians in general were regarded to be better educated and more capable than English doctors, so allowances could be made for their religious roots. 

Among those taking note of Lopez's growing reputation was Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester, steward of the queen's household and one of her romantic interests. I'm going to refer to him as Dudley or the earl because it's easier than typing (or copy/pasting) Leicester.

Dudley hired Lopez to be his personal physician and may have played a role in Lopez becoming the queen's chief doctor. Elizabeth suffered from a variety of ailments in her life and had a number of physicians attending to her, so adding Lopez to the staff as chief physician was probably intended to bring about some stability and order to her care.

He had formulated some concoctions from anise seed and sumac that provided relief for a great many complaints, and a few years after becoming her doctor, Elizabeth granted him an exclusive license to import anise and sumac. Later research has shown that the plants do have medicinal value and are good sources of antioxidants. (Not a recommendation on my part.)

Lopez had also attended Sir Francis Walsingham, who along with Sir William Cecil, both served as advisors to the queen and who are credited with forming an extensive intelligence network to protect the queen. Lopez managed to get himself involved in political intrigues in Portugal and Spain, and Walsingham seems to have recruited him to be a double agent for England in dealings with Spain.

Unfortunately for Lopez, his connections to Walsingham and Cecil resulted in his treating Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and another favorite of the queen, though perhaps not one of her suitors. By the way, the relationships he had to these people would require a chart.

Anyway, Lopez treated Devereux for some ailments, including venereal disease, so the story goes, but for reasons probably known only to himself, was publicly indiscreet about his patient. This, naturally, earned Devereux's wrath. Devereux would set out to destroy Lopez. 

He accused Lopez of being a foreign spy and succeeded in having the doctor locked up. Walsingham and Cecil defended Lopez before the queen, and she ordered Devereux to release Lopez, though she also allowed him to continue to seek evidence.

Devereux eventually found some men willing to admit, under torture, to being a part of a conspiracy to assassinate the Spanish king. He also discovered correspondence Lopez had sent the king that appeared to be in code and that seemed to imply a plot to kill the queen by poisoning her. 

Devereux had Lopez tortured, whereupon Lopez confessed. Before his trial, though, he recanted his confession, noting that it had been obtained by torture and that he had been working for Cecil as a double agent. At trial, though, he was not allowed to mount a defence. He was excoriated by the prosecutor as a villain and "a Jewish doctor worse than Judas himself ... " Not surprisingly, Lopez was convicted and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. 

Elizabeth waited three months before signing the death warrant and allowed Lopez's family to keep his estate and provided a modest living for his son. These acts are seen by some as showing the queen harbored doubts about the doctor's conviction.

On the gallows Lopez asserted his innocence and said he loved the queen as much as he loved Jesus Christ. Anti-Jewish sentiment in the crowd caused that to be interpreted as "not at all." Aletter from a Spanish diplomat written a decade later indicated that Lopez had never been involved in any plot and that the Spanish king had, in fact, never given any thought to Lopez at all because Lopez was the queen's friend and a bad Christian, which is to say, not a Catholic. 

Many of the English websites I consulted pretty much assume Lopez's guilt. Others implicate anti-Semitism as the real reason Lopez died. In any case, Lopez has gone down in history as the only royal physician ever executed in England. 

Image: Roderigo Lopez. Photograph after an engraving by E. Hulsius. From Wikipedia Commons and credited to Wellcome Images, a website operated by Wellcome Trust, a global charitable foundation based in the United Kingdom.