WHATEVER role royalty may now have in the 21st Century, surely today even its most ardent critics will admit that, in reaching her 100th birthday today the Queen Mother merits not just the congratulations of millions.

For though born in an age of deference, she has over all the long years in which that sentiment has been steadfastly eroded earned and kept their respect -- so that for so many of them she remains the most popular member of the Royal Family. Why is this? Perhaps the explanation is best found in the quality that makes her title most apt. Her majesty.

This old lady has made it a characteristic of her own and one that still generates some of the awe that the Crown once attracted -- by virtue of her maintaining the mystique and dignity of her position. And yet, though grand, she is never aloof but still radiates an unfailing rapport with millions of ordinary people. s that not the secret of her immense popularity?

She is grand and regal, yes. And born, too, to a life of the sort of wealth and privilege that is far removed from the lot of the millions who, nevertheless, feel she is at one with them.

It is this exceptional coupling of warmth with regality that has made the Queen Mother the royal favourite -- whose centenary is indeed an occasion being massively celebrated despite the tarnish the scandals have others have brought to modern royalty and despite the decline in deference that they and changing outlooks have also wrought.

But if she has a magic and majesty all of her own, it is not one that has been acquired by luck or birthright. Rather it has been done by her living up to her royal role and duty to the full. Even at 100, she does not eschew that task-- and, as always, she smiles.

And is that not at the root of it -- that for decades she has presented the image of the perfect queen, the ideal mother, the perfect grandmother?

Little wonder, then, that, by return, she has -- and has earned -- the best wishes of so many today.