El Catolico (real name Joaquim Jovellanos) is the main antagonist of the Bernard Cornwell novel Sharpe's Gold. He is a corrupt Spanish partisan during the Peninsular War.
Biography[]
Jovellanos was once a colonel in the Spanish army. After Spain was overrun by the French, he became a partisan known as El Catolico, the Catholic, because he prayed over men as he killed them. He had a reputation for brutality, taking days or more to kill captured Frenchmen. He became aware that Cesar Moreno had taken possession of Spanish gold sent to pay the defeated army and absorbed Moreno's partisans into his own group, becoming engaged to Moreno's daughter Teresa. He claimed he was going to deliver the gold to the Spanish government in Cadiz, but in fact he dreamed of using it to build a power base, so he could claim the area as his own private fiefdom when the French were defeated.
El Catolico managed to charm the British exploring officer Major Kearsey, but killed Kearsey's associate Captain Hardy, covering the murder up. Captain Richard Sharpe and his men arrived, ostensibly to help escort the gold to Cadiz, although in fact Sharpe had been sent to recover the gold to fund the British war effort. El Catolico claimed the gold had been taken by the French, killing a Polish sergeant Sharpe had captured to stop him saying otherwise. A skilled swordsman, he led a group of Frenchmen into a strike-and-run ambush, then killed the leader of a group of French hussars who pursued him. He fenced with Sharpe, matching his rapier against Sharpe's cavalry sword which he considered a butcher's blade.
Sharpe and Harper were suspicious of a freshly dug grave and Sharpe disinterred it only to find the body of one of El Catolico's men and no gold. However, Harper had seen El Catolico check a nearby manure pile, where the gold, worth around £16,000, was hidden. Sharpe and his men took the gold, holding El Catolico and his partisans at gunpoint, and took Teresa along as hostage. El Catolico pursued and nearly caught them, but was driven back by French cavalry, allowing Sharpe to take refuge in an abandoned fort and force El Catolico to stay back by pretending he had cut Teresa's ear.
El Catolico followed the group to Almeida, presenting himself in his colonel's uniform and laying claim to the gold with the fortress commander, Brigadier Cox. Cox ruled in El Catolico's favour, telling Sharpe to hand the gold over the following morning. El Catolico sought revenge on Sharpe and Teresa, who was now Sharpe's lover, and made a plan to lure Sharpe onto a balcony and shoot him. Sharpe instead headed up onto the roof and allowed El Catolico to join him for a fair fight. El Catolico was the more skilled duellist, and Sharpe's attempt to stop him with a jab to the eyes failed, so Sharpe allowed El Catolico to stab him in the leg, trapping his rapier, then struck him in the face with his sword hilt, stunning him, before killing him with a sword thrust through his throat.
Trivia[]
- El Catolico was omitted from the television adaptation of the novel, which instead used a different Spanish partisan, El Casco, as the main antagonist.
