Queen Elizabeth

MONTREAL -- The glory days are gone, but the sun still doesn't set on the British Empire, reduced now to a dozen or so forlorn and far-flung colonies, from the rearing rock of Gibraltar to the South Pacific specks known as the Pitcairn Islands.Queen Elizabeth II still reigns over 15 independent nations, large and small, in addition to Britain. While her role is symbolic, all acts of government in those countries are done in her name, and she is officially the head of state of each. These countries, most notably Canada and Australia, all slipped from Britannia's imperial embrace over the past 130 years but have clung steadfastly to the British monarch as their own.That devotion, however, is being tested in the waning days of the 20th century.

Whenever Walter T. Wilkie, former Pipe Major with the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards at Buckingham Palace, finished a performance for Queen Elizabeth II, he'd raise a Gaelic toast to the monarch."

Aloof and cautious, Queen Elizabeth II survived 45 years on the throne without having to undergo any major tests of her character. And then Princess Diana died, which forced the monarch - for the first time - to do something beyond the normal demands of pomp and protocol.Unfortunately, it is now obvious that she has failed the test, showing no great compassion for Diana and almost no understanding of the grieving nation.In her chillingly impersonal television address, and in her reluctance to break with precedent over such things as flying the Union Jack at half-staff, she has proven herself a queen in name only.

In 1981, she rode to her wedding to the Prince of Wales in a glittering 70-year-old "glass coach" on a sunny July day. Yesterday, she rode to her death in a Paris tunnel with a boyfriend in a gleaming limousine.In between, whatever she did and wherever she did it, Diana, Princess of Wales, was the center of world attention, ever the focus of loving publicity and venomous gossip.Diana burst on the scene as a beautiful, leggy teen-ager, the unsullied aristocrat Buckingham Palace had long sought as a bride for Prince Charles.

Maybe it's not quite as elegant as it once was. But it is still the Queen Elizabeth 2, the benchmark for luxury liners.On a blustery day, with winds whipping at 35 knots, the legendary passenger ship returned to the United States yesterday after three months at sea, stopping briefly in Baltimore yesterday on its way to Fort Lauderdale, Fla. It was the QE2's second trip here since 1995.Five tugboats nudged the 67,000-ton vessel through the harbor's sharp curves into Dundalk Marine Terminal.

GRAND TURK, Turks and Caicos Islands -- You'd think being the British governor of a tiny Caribbean island colony would give life a certain goofy glory.Being called "Your Excellency" pays $84,000 a year. The job comes with a lovely old residence called Waterloo, with magnificent seascapes and shady gardens tended by local convicts. But for Martin Bourke, the queen's man here, this paradise is, alas, turning into hell."Bourke Must Go" scream inch-high red headlines in the local paper. "Bourke must go!"

As Maryland goes, so goes New York?Hamas terrorism cannot destroy Israel. It can destroy only Palestine.Good news for Queen Elizabeth, who could use some. The Australians threw out their republican prime minister and may keep her on their throne.You can have stricter state curricula standards, or stronger site-based school management, but you cannot have both fads simultaneously.Pub Date: 3/06/96

LONDON -- A woman with a noble title is not supposed to dish royal dirt.But Sarah Bradford, the Viscountess Bangor, has done that and more. She has researched, written and publicized the book of the moment, "Elizabeth, A Biography of Her Majesty the Queen." It's a purported tell-all account of Queen Elizabeth's life and her relationships with the strong-willed man she loves, and the royal children who have been so notoriously unlucky in love.The book, which hits British stores today, has been serialized in The Times of London and its contents picked up and transformed into banner headline stories in the tabloid newspapers.

QUITE WHAT Princess Diana was up to when confessing to the BBC television that her husband, Prince Charles, might not want to be king of England and that she wished to be "queen of people's hearts" is unclear to the hundred of millions with whom she shared these intimacies.She was at least showing that she was better at manipulating public opinion than her estranged husband, the current Prince of Wales. As mother of the royal heir, Prince William (next in line after his dad), she might have been negotiating leverage with her mother-in-law, Queen Elizabeth.

For those who love the sea and its great ships, this book serves as a reminder that the era of the great Trans-Atlantic liners will finally draw to a close when the Queen Elizabeth 2 -- known commonly as the QE2 -- finally sails on its last voyage to the breakers' yard.The ship is descended from a grand pantheon of Cunarders with a pedigree so hallowed on the Great Circle Route that the years have not washed away their memory.The Mauretania, Lusitania, Aquitania, Berengaria, and the superliners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth -- legendary predecessors on the North Atlantic route -- figure mightily in the QE2's heritage.