Queen Mother

Although he reveals that Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother regularly indulges in gin and tonic and is Britain's ""oldest ever queen'' at 87, the author of Princess admits he's ``wobbly at the back of the knees'' in her presence and, in that vein, delivers a reverential tribute. Particularly insipid is Lacey's whitewash of the sovereign's attitude toward her late sister-in-law the Duchess of Windsor: ``Her animus . . . was not fundamentally personal. As Queen Consort . . . she believed in and cared deeply for the purity and value of her husband's sacred trustthe reflection of which the Duchess of Windsor so desperately wished to enjoy. As wife of Bertie . . . so long in the shadow of his talented elder brother, she was entitled to be happy when the row over the Duchess's status inhibited the Duke from coming back to England to rekindle his public magic.'' Lacey asserts that the Queen Mum ``looks like a Queen,'' and he's not disputed by the masterly pictures, featuring a young Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, later studies by Cecil Beaton and Snowdon, as well as a smiling King George VI and Queen Elizabeth posing in front of a bombed Buckingham Palace in 1940. (November)