El Matarife (real name Juan Hacha) is a major antagonist in the Bernard Cornwell novel Sharpe's Honour and its television adaptation.
He was portrayed by Matthew Scurfield, who also played Otto in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Biography[]
Novel[]
Juan was the brother of Father Hacha, a member of the Spanish Inquisition. His family was once wealthy but lost their fortune when the French invaded. Juan became a partisan leader, known as El Matarife or the Slaughterman. His brutality extended past the French to his own people: He killed twelve men from a Spanish village who refused to give him food. He took great delight in inflicting painful deaths on his prisoners. One of his favourites was to challenge them to a knife fight, with the combatants linked by chain around their wrists: He would inflict dozens of painful cuts on his opponents before killing them. He ambushed a French convoy, slowly killing the soldiers and taking two camp prostitures, who were forced to sleep with him and his men on pain of death.
His brother came to him with the French intelligence officer Major Pierre Ducos. Ducos wanted their help to get Spain to agree to a treaty with France and end their alliance with Britain. In return, he would help the two brothers gain the fortune of La Marques de Cesares el Grande y Melida Sabada. If La Marques were killed and his wife took holy orders, his wealth would go to the church. To this end, posing as his brother's servant, El Matarife murdered La Marques in his sleep, framing Ducos' old enemy Major Richard Sharpe.
El Matarife and his men were set to guard the convent where La Marquesa Helene had been imprisoned by Hacha. He encountered Sharpe, posing as a British officer named Major Vaughn, and his guide, a Spanish boy named Angel. Matarife put on one of his knife fights with a captured Frenchman but Sharpe put the man out of his misery by shooting him, saying he wanted to fight the French alongside El Matarife. Sharpe claimed he was there with a message from the Marquess of Wellington, to ask El Matarife to harass the retreating French army. He also asked about Helene, who he had heard was in the convent. El Matarife claimed Helene was his prisoner, then showed him the body of a girl who had supposedly just committed suicide. He was unaware that Sharpe knew Helene and knew the girl was not her.
After Sharpe took Helene from the convent by force, El Matarife used the fact to stir up other partisan groups against him. He tracked Sharpe and Helene down and challenged Sharpe to a knife-fight but was forced to flee by French troops, working for Helene's lover General Verigny. After the destruction of the French fort of Bugos, El Matarife investigated, hoping to find some French wounded to torture, and learned Sharpe had been held there and was believed dead.
In the aftermath of the Battle of Vitoria, El Matarife killed Captain Chaumier, who had been acting as Helene's guide, and took her prisoner. He intended to rape her and then return her to the convent, but first attempted to loot the French baggage train. Instead, he encountered Sharpe and his men, and Sharpe challenged him to one of his knife fights. For the first time, Matarife found himself outclassed. Sharpe held him at knifepoint and forced him to confess to La Marques' murder, then, remembering the girl Matarife had killed to fool him, slit his throat.
Television[]
El Matarife aided his brother Hacha and Ducos in their plan to frame Major Sharpe for the murder of La Marques and take his fortune. Matarife murdered La Marques and set up a guard over the convent where Helene was imprisoned. He was visited by Sharpe, posing as Major Vaughn, and Sergeant Harper, who claimed to be there to stir up the Spanish partisans to fight the French. Sharpe asked about La Marquesa and El Matarife showed him the body of a dead girl he claimed was her. Sharpe secretly saw through the deception, noticing that the girl had the wrong hair colour.
In the aftermath of the Battle of Vitoria, El Matarife captured Helene but was stopped by Sharpe and his men. Sharpe challenged him to a knife fight and defeated him, forcing him at knifepoint to admit to working for the French and killing La Marques. As Sharpe turned to go, El Matarife lunged at him, intending to stab him in the back, but was shot dead by Major Mendora, La Marques' aide who had heard the confession.
