Justice, Politics and Diplomacy: the Marquis of Arronches’ Criminal Case (Vienna and Lisbon, 1696-1700)

Abstract

The murder of Ferdinand Leopold von Hallweil in the Vienna Woods in August 1696 attracted a great deal of attention at the time, primarily because the suspected perpetrator was the Portuguese ambassador, Charles-Joseph of Ligne, second Marquis of Arronches. Building on the existing literature and on unchartered sources, this article examines how the Portuguese royal court handled the case both on the political-diplomatic level and on the judicial front, looking into the conflicting interests and values that were weighed and the solutions designed to minimize damage to the reputation of the Portuguese crown and the House of Sousa. It argues that both formal and informal mechanisms of punishment were applied in order to restore political and social order.