Yesterday was the birthday of Karl Marx, so I decided to dip into a section of Capital, Volume 1, I hadn’t read yet to celebrate. And in footnote 12 of chapter 27, I found Marx suggesting that in 1695 William of Orange (King William III of England) granted a large property in Ireland, confiscated after winning the Williamite War there, to his mistress, Lady Orkney, because of her fellatio skills. He quotes a manuscript as follows:
“On the private moral character of this bourgeois hero, among other things: ‘The large grant of lands in Ireland to Lady Orkney, in 1695, is a public instance of the king’s affection, and the lady’s influence…Lady Orkney’s endearing offices are supposed to have been foeda labiorum ministeria.'”
Karl Marx, Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 27, Note 12
In the Penguin Classics edition I have, the Latin is translated in a footnote to the footnote as “base services performed with the lips.”
That’s on page 844, which is admittedly a long way to read to get to a dirty part, but don’t ever let anyone tell you history or economics are dull, and always read the footnotes!