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| Juanita de Elia | |
| Medium: | Novels, Television |
| Nationality: | Spanish |
| Rank: | Doña |
| Appearances: | Sharpe's Battle, Sharpe's Battle |
| Actor: | Siri Neal |
Juanita de Elia is a Spanish adventuress and French agent. She claims to be the widow of a man dead of fever in South America.
Novel[]
She appears in Sharpe's Battle working as an agent for Pierre Ducos' who introduced her to General Guy Loup. She is described as about thirty years old, tall and thin, her face memorable rather than beautiful; hard, clever, and scornful.
She loves to hunt and rides with a pack of hounds at her side. She dresses in breeches so she can ride astride, and favors military uniforms. She is reputed to have taken a uniform from every regiment for every man she'd ever slept with, and her wardrobe was said to be as large as other people's parlors. Ducos thought her a "flamboyant whore," albeit a useful whore.
She and Loup formed an immediate connection, even as she worked to seduce Lord Kiely, whom she described as a drunken fool who would do whatever she told him. At San Isidro Fort, where Kiely's command was assigned, she rides in with her hounds in advance of a "pack of Frogs." When Kiely challenges one of the pursuing French to single combat, she breaks the rules by shooting the Dragoon, who had the advantage on Kiely, but she needed Kiely alive so claimed the Dragoon was going for a pistol.
When introduced to Sharpe, she snubs him, turning away without acknowledging him after a long appraisal. When Colonel Runciman points out she didn't like him, Sharpe responds that it was a mutual thing.
When Loup later attacks San Isidro, she opens the gates for him and locks herself and Kiely in the gatehouse which was not assaulted during the action. Harper relates that witnesses reported it was she, and not Kiely, giving the orders in the gatehouse, and watched the fight outside with great enjoyment.
It is she who smuggles counterfeit newspapers speaking of fictitious atrocities committed in Ireland by the British, to the Irish regiments, hoping to cause unrest among them, and destabilize the British Army. When she flees to the French after Keily's death, she steals Rifleman Perkins green jacket as a trophy.
During the Battle of Fuentes de Onoro, she followed Loup's Brigade into action dressed as a dragoon, and attempts to kill Sharpe while he duels with Loup, she fires her carbine, wounding Sharpe, and turns to flee. Patrick Harper's desperate warning followed by his firing of the volley gun "snatched Juanita off her horse in an eruption of blood." (Sharpe's Battle)
Television[]
Unlike his counterpart in the novel, Lord Kiely is married. In a campaign of humiliation, he took up with Doña Juanita, and flouted his affair even as his wife took up residence in San Isidro Fort with his command. At one point, however, Lady Keily hits Juanita. Once Kiely discovers his wife's pregnancy, he promised to end things with Juanita, and sent Lady Keily away. Juanita, however, arranged for the wife's capture by Loup. She then informed Kiely that if he did not abandon Sharpe and his men on the battlefield, his wife would die.
Kiely did hold his men back from the attack, and when confronted by Sharpe, the two men fought until Juanita tried to kill Sharpe. Kiely then turned on her, sabre in hand, and killed her.