The Honourable John Lavisser is the main antagonist of the Bernard Cornwell novel Sharpe's Prey, set during the British assault on Copenhagen in 1807.
Biography[]
John Lavisser was a half-English, half-Danish officer in the British Foot Guards. Like all Guards officers, he held a dual rank as a captain and major. In reality, however, he was working for the French. With the British aware of a French plan to steal the Danish fleet from Copenhagen, they assigned Lavisser the task of bribing the Danish Crown Prince into handing the fleet over to the British, since he had contacts at Danish court. General Baird assigned another officer, Captain Henry Willsen, to escort Lavisser, but Lavisser had his servant Barker kill Willsen. He was thrown when Baird quickly assigned Lieutenant Richard Sharpe as a replacement.
Having befriended Sharpe on the journey over, Lavisser planned to kill him as soon as they set foot in Denmark but failed. Instead, he went to the Danish authorities and told them Sharpe was there to assassinate the Crown Prince. He claimed loyalty to Denmark and was made a major in their army and an aide to General Peymann. His main mission however was to identify the British spymaster in the area, and had his stroke of luck when the man in question, Ole Skovgaard, who had believed Lavisser's lie about Sharpe, revealed Sharpe had contacted him. Lavisser captured Skovgaard and tortured him for his list of contacts but was stopped by Sharpe, who drove Lavisser off and rescued the old man.
With British soldiers cutting off Copenhagen and the Royal Navy preparing to bombard it to force the fleet's surrender, Lavisser briefly encountered Sharpe again when he led a group of militia against the British. He tried to convince Peymann that Skovgaard was a British agent, but Skovgaard had already contacted Peymann stating that he had aided Britain when they were Denmark's allies but his loyalty was to Denmark. Lavisser eventually learned where Skovgaard was hiding from a family friend Aksel Bang, who was jealous of Sharpe's relationship with Skovgaard's daughter Astrid. He again captured and tortured him, but Skovgaard was again rescued by Sharpe, who destroyed the list of contacts and also set fire to Lavisser's grandfather's house, melting the gold which Lavisser had been given for the bribe and hidden away.
Convinced Sharpe had the list, and with the city in flames from the British bombardment, Lavisser took Astrid hostage and confronted Sharpe in the burning cathedral. Sharpe managed to kill both Bang and Barker, then pursued Lavisser across a balcony. Cornered, Lavisser tried to convince Sharpe to change sides, claiming the French would look after them and give them land in Denmark: "Thugs win, Richard. To the powerful go the spoils." Sharpe shot Lavisser in the arm with a volley gun, causing him to lose his pistol and crippling them, then forced him towards the edge with his sword. Lavisser grabbed the cutlass to stop himself falling and Sharpe let go of it, causing Lavisser to fall into the flames below.
