Dame Professor Sue Black is widely recognised for her groundbreaking work as a forensic anthropologist and has now been invited by King Charles to join the Order of the Thistle. A chivalric order bestowed by the reigning monarch and believed to have originated in the 1400s, the honour currently recognises 16 knights and citizens who have held public office or have made a particular contribution to national life across law, medicine, politics and business.
The order is recognised by the ceremonial dress of a green velvet robe and black velvet hat topped with an ostrich feather. The Order’s motto, Nemo me impune lacessit – ‘No one provokes me with impunity’ – is a former motto of the Stuart dynasty and is also used by the Royal Regiment of Scotland.
Dame Professor Sue Black will be appointed to the order alongside fellow Scots, human rights activist Sir Geoff Palmer and lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy. The King has also appointed his brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, to mark his 60th birthday.
Professor Black, who was born in Inverness, set up the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at Dundee University and pioneered new identification techniques to convict paedophiles, with her further research on biometrics taking her to Kosovo and Sierra Leone to assist in international war-crime investigations.
Awarded a life peerage in 2021, Professor Black, who is currently serving as president of St John’s College at Oxford University, described the news of her latest honour as ‘somewhat surreal. Contact from the Palace was so totally unexpected. . . I don’t think it has really sunk in fully and all I can promise to do is to serve as best I can.’
The new knights and ladies will be officially sworn in at a ceremony held this summer at St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh.