``Merchant of Venice'', Lopez, and Perez

Then the Professor Lilian Winstanley relates some relevant historical background to ``Merchant of Venice'' to help us ``mind read'' that audience.
``It is very generally admitted that Shakespeare's portrait of a Jew villain is probably in part due to the great excitement caused by the trial of a Jew, Roderigo Lopez, for the attempted murder of the queen and Don Antonio: Lopez was executed in, 1594.
``Shakespeare, in drawing the portrait of the Jew villain, was availing himself of what was just then a strong popular excitement against the Jews. So much is admitted! [See Boas, Shakespeare and His Predecessors.]''
From Frederick A Boas's ``Shakespere and his Predecessors'' pp. 216-8:
``But Shakespere was probably influenced by other than purely literary precedents. The long-prevalent tradition that Jews were unknown in England between the time of Edward I and the Protectorate, and that thus Shakespere must either have been entirely unacquainted with them, or have met them abroad, has been completely disproved from examination of the state papers and other authoritative sources. A tract written between 1600 and 1625 expressly declares `a store of Jewes we have in England; a few in court; many i' th' Ciity, more in the countrey.' Furthermore, as has been shown by Mr. S.L. Lee, during the earlier years of Shakepere's London life, a Jewish doctor--Roderigo Lopez by name--held a very prominent position in the capital, and must have been well known to many members of the theatrical profession. He was a physician to Lord Leicester, and at a later date the Queen herself. He thus formed an intimacy with the general body of the courtiers, among whom the young Earl of Essex was the rising leader. Essex, with whom Shakespere's friend Southampton was so closely connected , employed Lopez, who was a master of foreign languages, as interpreter in his communication with Antonio Perez, a Portuguese refugee at the English court. Perez was a pretender to the throne of his native land, which Philip of Spain wished to annex to his dominions, and he naturally received support from the Queen and her advisers. He showed, however, little capacity for his part, and Lopez gradually became estranged from him and his patron Essex. The doctor even agreed with agents of Philip to poison Perez, and overtures were made to him to put Elizabeth out of the way by similar means. This he emphatically refused to do, but Essex, discovering that a plot against the Queen was in progress, succeeded by threats of torture, in implicating Lopez, who was tried before a special commission in the Guildhall, and executed amidst the jeering execrations of the city crowd at Tyburn in the spring of 1594. Even after his death the popular excitement was kept alive by the publication of five official accounts of his treason. It can therefore be no mere chance that Henslowe, in his diary, mentions no less than twenty representations, between May 1594 and the end of the year, of Marlowe's `Jew of Malta'. The `groundlings,' with the execution of Lopez fresh in their minds, would appreciate with more than usual zest plays which introduced memebers of his race in an odious light, and it is in the highest degree probable that it was under these influences that Shakespere began `The Merchant of Venice'. There is furthermore great plausability in Mr. Lee's ingenious conjecture that the name Antonio for Shylock's victim, whioh is not found in the earlier stories, and which is Portuguese rather than Italian, was taken from Antonio Perez, who after the execution of the doctor became a popular hero.
Wikipedia has a different account of the Portuguese Antonio Perez making him a) Spanish, b) more the manipulator, and c) King Philip more the victim of Perez and William the Silent. There will be more to say on William the Silent also known as William of Orange in Professor Winstanley's third book. (seeen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Perez)
Were one to split the difference, Spain conquered Portugal in 1580.