Royal family in Scotland: The new members to be inducted into Scotland's historic Order of the Thistle

King Charles will make an appearance in Edinburgh today as his health battles give way to ceremony.

The King will be joined by Queen Camilla, the Duke of Rothesay and The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh at a service at St Giles’ Cathedral in the Scottish capital to install three new members of the Order of the Thistle – Scotland’s oldest and highest chivalric honour.

The appearance of the King is one of the first in Scotland since his cancer diagnosis was made public in February. The Duchess of Rothesay, who is also being treated for cancer, will not attend.

King Charles attends the Order of the Thistle Service at St Giles' in 2022 when he was the Duke of Rothesay. PIC: Jane Barlow/PA.

The King has personally selected Sir Geoff Palmer, human rights activist and educator on Scotland and slavery; forensic anthropologist Professor Baroness Sue Black of Strome and lawyer and women’s rights campaigner Baroness Helena Kennedy of The Shaws to join the order.

The Most and Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle recognises those who have contributed greatly to Scottish life through excellence in their professional life, with medicine, law, academia, politics and business all represented among the order’s 16 knights and ladies.

Sir Geoff Palmer has been appointed to the Order of the Thistle by King Charles III and will attend the offical ceremony of installation at St Giles' on Wednesday. PIC: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire

The King also has the capacity to appoint Royal Knights to the order, with Queen Camilla and Prince Edward, the Duke of Edinburgh, also to be officially appointed during the ceremony.

The order may have been founded by James III (1488 to 1513) who was responsible for changes in Royal symbolism in Scotland, including the adoption of the thistle as the Royal plant badge. James VII (1633–1701) re-established the Order to reward Scottish peers who supported the king’s political and religious aims.

The motto of the order – Nemo me impune lacessit – was the motto of the Stuart dynasty in Scotland from at least the reign of James VI.

The ceremony at St Giles’ will be set deep in pomp and ceremony, with the dress of the Knights made up of flowing emerald green cloaks and black hats topped with bright white ostrich feathers.

Lawyer and women's rights campaigner Baroness Helena Kennedy will also be officially appointed to the Order of the Thistle by King Charles III at St Giles'. PIC: Anthony Devlin/PA Wire

Professor Black described the moment she learned of her appointment to the order as “somewhat surreal”.

Born in Inverness, Prof Black set up the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification at Dundee University and pioneered new techniques to identify paedophiles, with her further research on biometrics taking her to Kosovo and Sierra Leone to assist in international war crime investigations.

She was awarded a life peerage in 2021 and is president of St John’s College at Oxford University.

Sir Geoff is the Professor Emeritus of in the School of Life Sciences at Heriot-Watt University and a human rights campaigner who has done much to illuminate Edinburgh and Scotland’s links to slavery. His late mother’s grandfather, Henry Larmond, was a slave owned by the Scottish governor of Jamaica, Earl Balcarras.

Forensic anthropologist Professor Dame Sue Black has also been appointed to the Order of the Thistle by King Charles III. PIC: PA.

He earlier said: “I accept the award with great honour and humility, not only for myself, but on behalf of the people who have supported my life, education and work from my birth in Jamaica in 1940.”

Baroness Kennedy has been widely recognised for her work on women and the law and on widening participation in higher education.