The Marquis de Cardenas (also referred to as Admiral Cardenas or simply the admiral) is the overarching antagonist of the Bernard Cornwell novel Sharpe's Fury. He is a retired Spanish officer in 1811.
Biography[]
The Marquis de Cardenas commanded a Spanish ship at Trafalgar. He had his left leg blown off by a cannonball during the battle, forcing him to use a wooden stump and a cane to walk in later life, and was captured along with his ship by the British. Although he was treated with respect as a prisoner of war and given a home in a large estate until he could be exchanged, he was left with a deep hatred of the English.
By 1811, the admiral was resident in Cadiz, the only part of Spain not under French occupation. He despised Spain's alliance with the British and sought to make a secret peace with France. He had entered secret negotiations with them which would see Spain cut ties with Britain, King Ferdinand restored to the throne and the French given free passage to attack the British and Portuguese. As part of the negotiations, the French left Cardenas' estate on the River Guadiana, where his mother was in residence, unmolested. The admiral opposed any attempts to turn Spain into a democracy, believing the king and the church should hold power. He dreamed of taking over the regency and becoming the king's chief advisor.
Cardenas began to see a way to achieve his goal when his former chaplain, Father Montseny, reported he had received confession from Caterina Veronica Blazquez, the mistress of British ambassador Henry Wellesley. Caterina had had letters written to her by Wellesley, which her pimp Gonzalo Jerado had attempted to use to blackmail the British. Montseny had killed both Jerado and the British envoy Captain Plummer, gaining the letters. He proposed both offering to sell them back to the British and using them as the basis for altered letters published in the anti-liberal newspaper El Correo de Cadiz, claiming the British aimed to annexe Cadiz. The Marquis was keen to keep both the letter and the British gold, needing money to bribe the Cortes into supporting his plans. He provided Montseny with support in his endeavours.
The Marquis was noticed by Captain Richard Sharpe and his associate from the foreign office, Lord Pumphrey, during a meeting of the Cortes. He sent Montseny to negotiate with the pair, intending to have them killed and take the gold they brought for the letters. Sharpe foiled the plan and also destroyed the office of El Correo de Cadiz and the inflammatory newspapers. Shortly after, the British army under Sir Thomas Graham won a victory over the French at Barossa, and were hailed as heroes by the population of Cadiz. Realising there was no chance of his plan succeeding now, the admiral sloped away, defeated.
