The Queen receives a double-edged verdict from historians today. One speaks of her immediate family as "dysfunctional" while another says the monarchy and her family now represent the nation.

The tribute comes from the Oxford historian Lawrence Goldman, who carries extra weight as the editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Dr Goldman wrote the Queen Mother's entry in a list of 200 names of recently dead people being added to the dictionary.

The list also includes Princess Margaret, Myra Hindley, the Labour politician Barbara Castle, Inspector Morse actor John Thaw, and comedians Spike Milligan, Dudley Moore, and Barry Took.

Of the Queen Mother, Dr Goldman writes: "She never sought to innovate, and she was probably never conscious of the new constitutional and social relations she was pioneering. Yet by going to the people in 1940, and by continuing to play an extensive role in public life and philanthropy, she helped develop a new role for the monarchy in civil society ... By the time of her death the monarchy, and the royal family more generally, had come to represent the nation, both to itself and to the rest of the world."

The royal historian Sarah Bradford writes that Princess Margaret could be cold and capricious but was good with the young. "Her relationship with her own children was notably successful and easy: both children grew up to be well grounded and talented and both made happy marriages, in contrast to what has sometimes been unkindly depicted as the 'dysfunctional' senior branch of the family."

The inclusion of the child murderer Hindley is bound to be controversial. Dr Goldman said: "The ODNB is not a roll-call of the 'great and good' but a record of all aspects of our history: it has always included some criminals."