Napoleon would have been proud of them. A couple of hundred years ago Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor of the French; yesterday the former law lords swore themselves in as justices of the Supreme Court, for much the same reason — because no one else would do.

It would, after all, have hardly been correct for the Lord Chancellor, Jack Straw, to do the honours, because the very raison d’être of the Supreme Court is its independence. And there is its title: Supreme really does mean supreme.

Thus it was that in a ceremony in the Middlesex Guildhall in Parliament Square, Central London, the deputy president of the court swore the President in, the President swore in the deputy and then the President — Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers — swore in everyone else.

It did, of course, raise the odd legal nicety — how could the deputy, Lord Hope of Craighead, swear in his boss when he was not technically sworn in himself? One for the lawyers to sort out, perhaps.

This, as we were constantly reminded, was history in the making, although as the 11 justices sat at the curved bench in Court One before a 50-strong audience of their families and court staff, the occasion had more of the air of a register office wedding than anything else.

At least the robes — black brocade trimmed with gold lace, embroidered on the back with the emblem of the Supreme Court — and the language of the oaths reflected the august and solemn nature of the occasion. First, the justices swore that they would “be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors”. Then they swore that as justices of the Supreme Court they would “do right to all manner of people, after the laws and usages of this realm, without fear or favour, affection or ill will”.

Yes, yes, but what about the hats? As the justices were sworn in, the ten male justices all sat bare-headed while the one female justice, Baroness Hale of Richmond, wore a hat, a soft, low-brimmed, black velvet number.

Was this a reflection of some arcane nugget of historic symbolism, a tradition so long established that its origins are all but forgotten?

No, apparently Lady Hale just fancied wearing a hat. Lord Phillips said: “We had some discussion as to whether we would have hats. She thought she would like to have a hat. The rest of us thought we would not.”

Lady Hale is clearly the justice with an eye for style (although perhaps there is not a lot of competition), as according to Lord Phillips she also had a hand in the design of the ceremonial robes, with their floral embroidery on the sleeves to represent the constituent parts of the United Kingdom.

Flowers, indeed, were everywhere. There were flowers on the carpet — a design by the artist Peter Blake, based on the court emblem by the heraldic artist Yvonne Holton of a red rose for England, thistle for Scotland, leek for Wales and flax for Northern Ireland — flowers on the curtains, on the blinds, even above where the justices sat.

Then, when the Supreme Court finally got down to business, in the sleek and business-like Court No 2 rather than the Gothic splendour of Court No 1, Lady Hale chose to keep the theme going with a brooch bearing the court emblem.

And who was the first person to have the honour of addressing the court, on a costs application in the case about the schoolboy refused a place at a Jewish school? Why, Miss Dinah Rose, QC, of course. History: they said it with flowers.

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