There were no new appointments made to the Order of the Garter in 2025, the most recent addition being the off-cycle appointment of the Emperor of Japan as a Stranger Knight on his state visit in 2024.

Today three new Knights Companion were announced, leaving just one vacancy among the ordinary category: Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, Lord O’Donnell and Lord Burnett of Maldon. All three are crossbench life peers. Actually, all of the non-royal recipients of the Garter so far this reign have been life peers. By contrast, the fifteen still-living members added by Elizabeth II comprise seven life peers, four hereditary peers and four commoners. It may be too early to determine if this represents a significant trend.

O’Donnell was Cabinet Secretary from 2005 to 2011. From lectures and documentaries I get the sense that he was a particularly-revered holder of that office. It is also notable that he was the last in a long string to be simultaneously Head of the Home Civil Service, Cabinet Secretary and Permanent Secretary to the Cabinet Office, after which there was an attempt to split these into three separate roles (though the first two were reunited not long afterwards). His first name is formally Augustine, but in practice is nearly always given as Gus, giving him the initials G.O.D. Ironically, while he is now a Knight of the Garter and has since 2005 been a Knight of the Bath as well, he has not been appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George, which denies him the opportunity to live out this classic joke from Yes, Minister.

Burnett was Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales from 2017 to 2023, his six-year tenure making him the longest-serving LCJ since Geoffrey Lane (1980-1992).

He doesn’t seem to be as famous as O’Donnell, though I note he was part of the divisional court of the Queen’s Bench Division for the Miller 2 case in 2019. After retiring from the English judiciary he became Chief Justice of a commercial court based in Kazakhstan.

Both Burnett and O’Donnell are the sort of people one could expect to receive the Garter based on their offices as the existing membership included Lord Butler of Brockwell and Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, though neither office guarantees the award and there are plenty of emeriti from each who have not received it.

Hennessy is the exception here, as although a parliamentarian he does not seem to have held any particular public office, whether governmental, ministerial, diplomatic, judicial or vice-regal. There have been a handful of people like this, like Mary Soames and Edmund Hillary, but they are definitely a rarity. He co-founded the Institute of Contemporary British History in 1986 and has been Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History since 1992 at QMUL since 1992. He has written at least two-dozen books on history and politics, making him the most (first?) prominent academic to receive the nation’s highest order. Norton must be quietly seething.

I illustrated Hennessy’s shield for Wikimedia Commons in 2022. It is about what one would expect for a man who has worked in academia. I suspect that Rs-nouse will be re-illustrating it in his characteristic style fairly shortly. Neither O’Donnell nor Burnett had arms listed in Debrett’s 2019, so the hanging of their banners in St George’s Chapel will be an exciting revelation.

Garter appointments are traditionally announced on 23rd April because it is St George’s Day, St George of Lydda being the patron saint of the Order of the Garter since its inception in 1348 and of England more generally thereafter. In modern times, today is also the eighth birthday of Prince Louis of Wales. I can’t help wondering if the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge quietly kicked themselves for having already given the name George to their July-born first son, thus missing another chance for poetic alignment.

Louis & George in June 2023