Bouquets with handwritten notes still appear faithfully at the gates of Kensington Palace, where the world kept a televised vigil in the days after her death in a Paris car crash.

The familiar smile and the famous blue eyes still shine from the covers of glossy magazines and newspapers on every newsstand in the country. The tiara glitters on her short blonde hair on calendars, coffee mugs and carousels of postcards.

``If you had been asleep that week, you might be misled to think she was still with us,'' says Hugo Vickers, a royal historian and commentator. Her memory, her soul, hasn't been allowed to settle.''

But while Princess Diana's memory seems trapped on automatic replay, the monarchy slowly shifts and her sons move on.

``They grow up largely outside thepublic eye, fiercely guarded by palace and family.

William and Harry have chosen to be with their father at Balmoral Castle in Scotland on the August 31 anniversary of their mother's death, rather than with the Spencer family, which is marking the day with a service at Princess Diana's grave.

Diana's death and her life had an impact on the way people see the monarchy,'' the queen's press secretary, Geoffrey Crawford, acknowledged. ``It has a resonance not only in this country but abroad, and it's not lost on the queen. And you see that in the way we're doing our business now.''The future is looking a lot friendlier and more up to date at Buckingham Palace, where the heavy draperies of protocol and tradition are easing apart.

Queen Elizabeth II has even hired a public relations professional to help improve her communication with the people.

The palace has realised the value of allowing photographers into events where the queen speaks informally with people. Now, instead of just standing grimly onpodiums and clasping bouquets, the queen is photographed laughing with a pink-haired rock singer, chatting in a pub or running across a field to catch sight of her husband in a coach-driving race.

One morning this summer, The Times covered the top of its front page with a picture of the queen visiting a McDonald's, although it carefully noted she eschewed a big mac and fries.

`The people longed for a less remote monarch: yesterday they met her,' the headline said.

The chastened tabloids, accused of pursuing Diana to her death, have reined in their coverage of the royals a bit. But the circulation battle waged over the minutiae of Diana's and Charles' lives and loves continues.

Princes William and Harry remain objects of fascination, and the press commitment to leave them alone appears to be flagging.

Only last month, the Sunday mirror revealed the boys' secret 50th birthday treat for their father an original skit spoiling the surprise. Lord Deedes, former editor of the Daily Telegraph and anally of Diana in her campaign to ban land mines, remains skeptical about tabloid restraint.``The fact is, nothing has altered at all really,'' he says.

``Intense competition will always elbow out good manners.''All three princes are evidently very proud of each other,'' the daily telegraph's royal correspondent, Robert Hardman, wrote after the trio's vacation trip to Canada in march.

Hamming it up for the cameras in their new red-and-white olympics jackets, prince William, now 16, prince harry, 13, and their father seemed a formidable triple-act,'' Hardman wrote.

That there is now a powerful bond and team spirit for the future is beyond doubt.''

Their occasional public appearances with prince Charles suggest a warm and affectionate relationship a surprise, perhaps, to those who heard earl Spencer's funeral oration for his sister as an attack on stuffy royal child-rearing, immersed by duty and tradition.'' On videotape, Diana and lover Dodi Fayed walk again and again through a corridor of the ParisRitz Hotel on the way to their deaths in a tunnel by the river Seine. Over and over, the princess walks through the same Angolan minefield in documentaries and news broadcasts.

And now Princess Diana the schoolgirl flirts day after day with her father's home-movie camera in a film shown at her ancestral home, where admirers pay to see her report cards and to gaze across a lake at her island grave.