LONDON When Queen Elizabeth II of Britain surveys the members of her family around the birthday table on Saturday, the tribulations of more recent times will surely crowd out the achievements of a long reign.

The early years on the throne according to DPA brought with them hard work but also the satisfaction of a job well done and keenly appreciated by her Britannic Majesty's subjects around the world.

In the years following World War II, the queen embarked on tours throughout the commonwealth to near universal acclaim, her dashing husband Philip with his proud war record at her side. Her hard work and mastery of the affairs of state earned the respect of successive prime ministers from both sides of the British political divide.

As she marks her 75th birthday, the queen can look back on almost 50 years on the throne, during which the empire was dismantled with remarkably little fuss and considerable strides were made in modernizing Britain's class-ridden society.

Yet the past decade or so was bedeviled by multiple divorce, royal indiscretions, revealing television interviews, taped telephone conversations of a highly intimate nature and displays of greed from the minor royals.

Prince Andrew and his wife Sarah separated in March of that year, and Princess Anne divorced in April. Worst of all, Prince Charles, heir to the throne, separated from his glamorous wife Diana in December.

Symbolically, Windsor Castle was severely damaged by fire the same year too.

Divorce had been taboo among royals since Henry VIII, and marriage to a divorcee had forced a king to abdicate as recently as 1936. Now it had touched three of the queen's four children and tainted the future role of Charles as head of the Church of England when he ascends the throne.

Before long a series of scandals centering on the marriage of Charles and Di were to appall and entertain the nation.

The publication of the "tampon tapes" of a conversation between Charles and his lover Camilla Parker-Bowles, television interviews in which Charles and Diana put their opposing points of view, revealing biographies and Diana's evident unhappiness at her position in "the firm", as the royal family came to be known, all served only to tarnish the monarchy.

Amid the storm Elizabeth stood firm, a beacon in the rising tide of scandal and humiliation. The worst that could be said of her -- and it was said often enough -- was that she lacked the warmth that many valued in Diana or Sarah's spontaneity.

While the sins of her daughter Anne and husband Philip lay largely in their peremptory comments to press and public that verged on outright rudeness and, in Philip's case came close to racism, it was royal sexual sins that titillated the popular press and drew anguished comments from even the most ardent monarchists.

Photographs of Sarah's lover kissing her toes scandalized the country in August 1992. In 1993, tapes dating back to 1989 were published, one of Charles talking in the most intimate and embarrassing detail to Camilla, and another of Diana speaking to a friend of her youth in fond terms.

In 1994 Charles acknowledged infidelity in a television interview, and Diana admitted an affair with James Hewitt in similar fashion in 1995. The queen instructed them to divorce, and the complex proceedings were wound up in August the next year.

Diana's death in a Paris car crash a year later brought renewed crisis to the family. This time the queen was at the center of it, seen as unresponsive to the unexpected death of the mother of her grandsons.

Prime Minister Tony Blair felt the need to step in and supervise the funeral arrangements for the "people's princess" and was able to take much of the credit during the outpouring of emotion that followed.

Diana's brother Charles delivered a scathing attack on the royal family in his funeral oration that was broadcast around the world. He found a largely sympathetic audience.

The monarchy was now at its lowest ebb since 1936, and while the scandals had left its central figure untouched, Elizabeth felt obliged to pledge in November 1997, on the occasion of her golden wedding anniversary, that she would listen to public opinion and adapt to the needs of the public.

But whenever the public image of the royals has appeared to be improving a new scandal has broken. Most recently indiscretions from Sophie, wife of Prince Edward, were published, and the affair has prompted a string of headlines on the use of their status by minor royals to line their pockets.

Swamped by a tide of woes she is unable to turn back, Elizabeth nevertheless remains a respected figure, even if she is seen as austere and unsmiling. Her central purpose is that the monarchy should survive her, and she is said to have her eye on her grandson William as the most likely candidate to achieve this goal.

It is often said the British prefer their monarchs to be women -- Elizabeth I and Victoria spring to mind as queens who reigned long and well -- and British monarchists are now wishing Elizabeth II a long and healthy life, fearing the consequences for the institution when she is gone.