HOW about that, the revolution was televised after all. Well, we could see Lady Hale as she delivered the judgment of the Supreme Court, but there was no sound.

“I can only apologise,” said Victoria Derbyshire, whose BBC morning show had been interrupted to go live to Little St George Street in Westminster for the verdict. Derbyshire had been told the problem was in the court itself, something to do with the torrential rain outside. No plague of frogs, locusts, or other sign of constitutional tempest? How very British: rain delays play.

READ MORE: Historic defeat for Boris Johnson

Finally, the combined force of tens of thousands swearing at the telly did the trick and the lady was for hearing. The voice was crisp, the language as clear as a summer sky. She was dressed in black, but there was no matching cap, the hanging judge’s head wear of choice. Things were bad for Boris Johnson, but not that bad.

The only adornment on her dress, apart from a microphone, was a jewelled brooch in the shape of a spider. In the most delicate but devastating of ways, the court’s president then proceeded to weave a web of Tungsten, trapping the unwise and unlawful actions of the Government within its strands like so many flies. Blistering statement followed astonishing declaration. The effect on the fundamentals of democracy was extreme. Advice to Her Majesty was unlawful, void and no effect. Parliament has not been postponed. Brutal.

The occasion would have been more theatrical had it taken place in an old-fashioned court, with the judges handing down their statement from on high. Alas, the Supreme Court, formally established in 2009, is a modern invention. With its black leather chairs, love of semi-circular seating areas and unremarkable wood, it has an air of the Welsh Assembly about it.

READ MORE: PM breaks his silence

There was something thoroughly modern, too, about the way the judgment was delivered. It had to be before the cameras so the pictures could be beamed live to devices big and small. Some would have watched on a 48-inch television; others on a smartphone screen. All who sat through the judgment could have been left in no doubt that this is what history being made looks like: mundane and electrifying at the same time.

But who needs fixtures and fittings to add dignity when you have Brenda Marjorie Hale presiding. The Baroness Hale of Richmond (Yorkshire, not Surrey) might look seven stone sopping weight, but appearances have rarely been more deceptive. As the novelist Linda Grant pointed out, the motto on the Baroness’s coat of arms is Omnia Feminae Aequissimae - “Women are equal to everything”.

Job done, the 74-year-old Lady Hale encouraged everyone to read the full judgment and the transcript of her summary. Up to that point, TV had been restrained in its coverage, waiting to hear what the judgment was in full and not leaping to half-baked conclusions which it could put out on the news ticker. The occasion demanded restraint, and for a while a relative calm descended.

READ MORE: What happens next?

But then the cameras had to leave the hushed surroundings of the Supreme Court and head once more into the fray. Back to the melee outside court, to politicians jostling for attention, to protesters shouting the odds, the flag wavers and the placard bearers staking their claims. The white wall of static, so often the background to this debate, was back. How quiet it had been in the court, how dignified, and my, how we will miss it in the days and weeks to come.