By KEVIN WARD, Canadian Press

LONDON (CP) - It's been a tragic, exhilarating and, ultimately, uneasy year for the Royal Family. The Queen's younger sister, Margaret, died in February, followed weeks later by the Queen Mother. Amid their personal grief, the Royal Family was at the centre of a summer-long celebration across Britain as the Queen's 50-year reign touched off a sometimes raucous party.

Then with 2002 coming to a close, the Queen was accused of meddling in Britain's justice system as two butlers, ready to spill yet more embarrassing royal secrets, walked free of theft charges under the strangest of circumstances.

In the end, the scandal surrounding the trials of Paul Burrell and Harold Brown might be the most memorable events of what, by any standard, was an eventful year for the monarchy.

Even those in Britain who are loyal to the Crown were struck by the damage done to royal reputations in the wake of Burrell and Brown walking free from court before juries had the chance to hear all the evidence against them.

Some predicted the Queen's intervention in Burrell's trial, when she suddenly remembered a five-year-old conversation that cleared him of stealing from Diana could lead to change in her constitutional role in British government.

After all, the charges against Burrell were brought in the Queen's name and were dropped after she sent word of the key piece of evidence in her possession, that Burrell had told her he was safeguarding some of the Princess of Wales' things after her death.

At the very least the royals found that much of the goodwill they had gained from the Golden Jubilee was frittered away by the end of 2002.

"I think they've lost two-thirds of what they gained PR-wise," royal watcher Harold Brooks-Baker, publishing director of Burke's Peerage, said in an interview.

The year began with sadness for the Royal Family after the deaths of Princess Margaret at age 71 and the Queen Mother, who was 101.

But after the Queen's private period of grieving over her mother's death came something unexpected. More than one million people lined the streets of central London to watch the Queen Mum's coffin pass in an outpouring of affection that surprised many observers.

The Golden Jubilee, meanwhile, was a public-relations coup, choreographed for maximum effect with a rock and a classical concert at Buckingham Palace, a fireworks spectacular, a commoners parade and a royal procession almost unrivalled in magisterial elegance.

Some thought that the royals, after more than a decade of scandal, might be on the verge of a renaissance after the main four-day party in June saw more than a million people once again throng to the streets and parks around the palace.

You Reign With Our Love, the Sun declared on its front page as the critics were proved wrong in their predictions that the jubilee would flop.

In an editorial, the venerable Times newspaper noted the jubilee's impact on the country: "Few foresaw that an anniversary that began so reluctantly amid boredom and cynicism would gather such momentum until it caught up the nation in an exuberant and spontaneous display of patriotic fervour not seen for many years."

For the Royal Family, it couldn't have gone any better.

"I have been profoundly moved by the affection shown and by the warmth of the response to my Golden Jubilee," said the 76-year-old Queen, who became the fourth longest reigning monarch in 1,000 years of English history.

How quickly it all changed in the next few months.

As Burrell's trial began in October, the Queen was on a tour of Canada to mark her jubilee.

The trip wasn't without controversy.

Deputy Prime Minister John Manley upstaged the Queen as she arrived by calling for an end to the monarchy in Canada when her reign is over.

"I've always said I have a lot of respect for the Queen and the work she does," Manley said. "But I still think for Canada, that after Queen Elizabeth, it will be time for us to think about the institution and I would prefer to have an entirely Canadian institution."

The comments were welcomed by Canada's fledgling republican movement for pushing the debate into the mainstream of politics.

"John Manley and a couple of other politicians to a lesser degree have fuelled our organization to an immense degree," Tom Freda, national director of Citizens for a Canadian Republic, said recently in an interview from Toronto.

"Had it not been for John Manley, perhaps our movement would still be stuck somewhat in the mid-1990s when it was pretty well taboo to talk about this."

And while Freda thinks the Canadian republican cause has been helped by the fallout from the trials of Burrell and Brown, he has tried to stay clear of exploiting what he sees as a British constitutional question.

"There's a fear within our own group that Britain will become a republic before Canada the way things are going," he said with a laugh.

"We're very pleased to see that the public is taking a second look at what the monarchy means to Britain. A lot of that does filter down here."

Brown's trial was stopped when the Crown withdrew its case that he had stolen from the royals when it emerged that it has long been a practice for members of the family to discard unwanted gifts by giving them to servants, who sell the haul for cash.

It made Brown's defence that he had authorization to sell a gold model of a dhow - an Arab sailboat - that had been given to Prince Charles and Diana as a wedding gift from the Emir of Bahrain seem plausible.

"Amid squalid new revelations about vanishing gifts, a second royal butler trial ends in ignominy and farce," the Daily Mail, a normally loyal newspaper, said in a headline after the collapse of the case against Brown.

Just how much all of this wears on the Queen is, of course, difficult to judge. At Britain's annual Remembrance Day service this year she wiped away a tear, a rare display of emotion for a woman who defines the meaning of stiff upper lip.

But royal observers wondered whether this moment of sadness was a result of the strain from the Burrell trial or if the Queen was upset because she was at a solemn ceremony that her mother had always attended on behalf of the family.

Brooks-Baker has little doubt that the Royal Family faces an uphill battle to maintain its position in British society as a result of the Burrell trial.

"It's a gigantic problem," he said.

There are those who have called for the Queen to be removed as the head of the British legal system, a privilege that means she cannot be called before the courts.

"My bet is that that will disappear eventually," said Brooks-Baker. "It's possible that her name throughout many institutions, like the army, the post office and so forth, will disappear, so that she becomes more and more of a figurehead monarch."

Diana's former lover would sell but not publish her letters, says lawyer

LONDON (AP) - A lawyer for Diana's one-time lover James Hewitt said Sunday that the former army officer would sell love letters from the late princess but only on condition that they never be published.

Michael Coleman told Sky News Hewitt had a right to sell the 64 intimate letters but had no intention of publishing them.

"If there is a buyer to come along, one thing that we will be seeking from such a buyer is a (promise) that the letters are never published," Coleman said.

Coleman's statement came after the News of the World tabloid reported that Hewitt, who was romantically involved with the Princess of Wales while she was married to Prince Charles, had offered to sell the letters for 10 million pounds ($25 million Cdn) to an undercover reporter.

The paper said the journalist posed as a private Swiss collector interested in buying the notes.

"I want 10 million pounds for the lot," the tabloid quoted him as saying.

It reported that he made no effort to check the real identity of the purported buyer.

Coleman told Sky that Hewitt did all he could to ensure the offer was genuine and made it clear the letters were not to be published.

After Hewitt co-operated in a 1994 book about their affair, called Princess in Love, Diana acknowledged the relationship and said he had let her down.

The affair began when he gave her riding lessons and the two are believed to have exchanged many letters, handwritten on blue airmail paper, when he served as a tank commander in the 1991 Gulf War.

Hewitt's former fiancee, Anna Staiano Ferretti, was accused in 1998 of stealing the letters from him but was never prosecuted.