Most and Least Intelligent Royals

[Iluvbertie]

I will only say this regarding Elizabeth IIs job, meeting people and being a constitutional monarch doesn't equate knowledge or intelligence; shes a constitutional monarch only leaving the heavy lifting to others.

She regularly has one on one talks with a range of people across all walks of life. Surely she would be shown up if she was unable to carry on such a conversation.

She may not be university educated in a formal sense but through sheer experience she has gained a great deal of knowledge and is able to show that knowledge when talking with many, many people.

[quote[It is a fact that the Queen and her sister were badly educated, whether they were empty headed we will never know. [/quote]

Badly educated is a biased definition.

They were very well educated to be the wives of pre-WWII noblemen - which until December 1936 was the expectation.

When Elizabeth's circumstances changed she was given a broader education that was personalised to her own specialist needs such as specific lessons in constitutional law from the Provost of Eton College.

She has so valued those lessons that she herself has conducted those lessons with both Charles and William when they were in their teens - often referring back to the notes she made at the time.

That list of Queen's of Europe doesn't take into account the Prince's who are also greatly educated, even the ones born royal.

Some are and some aren't.

The princes are educated as befits their own nations and their own interests.

Why this ongoing desire to put down one royal family over another (usually the Brits in comparison to their European counterparts) I will never understand.

I suspect it is borne from an inferiority complex by those from Europe towards the fact that the British Royal Family is the world's best known with a huge percentage of the world not even knowing that other European countries even have royal families anymore.

@Curryong, its not just university that is related to her lack of education but a bad formal education as well, looking at the things she was taught as a child.

She was taught what was deemed necessary for her at the time. That doesn't mean she was badly educated but that she was differently educated to what we would see as the norm today.

Were the other monarchs around Elizabeth's age so badly educated?[/quote[

There aren't any others around her age. The closest in age is King Harold - a male and so someone who would be expected to have some military training. He was also born to be King unlike Elizabeth who wasn't.

I know her mother, father, and grandfather weren't very much into books. But I'm going to go look into Margrethe etc.

Books aren't the only place to get learning. Elizabeth has learnt from life's experiences and from talking to people - from asking questions - not necessarily from books.

No I don't blame Elizabeth for her mother and fathers choices, but I don't see pointing out how lacking her education is compared to others is somehow blaming her.

You have been calling her 'badly educated'. She is now 91 so if she is badly educated she herself has had years to correct that so either she has done so and thus isn't 'badly educated' at all or she hasn't.

Education doesn't end when a person finishes schooling but should be lifelong and in Elizabeth's case that is very much the case. She didn't stop learning when she left the nursery but in many ways started her education then.

Many people I know do see their education as ending when they have their degree but 20 years down the track they are the 'badly educated' ones as they have stopped learning and haven't continued their education - probably don't have the skills to continue which is another sign of a badly educated person.

 

[AdmirerUS]

JMO - but formal schooling and degrees are the point at which you begin lifelong learning and are not the point at which you have earned the badge "intelligent." If you have chosen a good school and a good program, you have learned ways to approach issues, problems or opportunities. You have not learned ANSWERS; rather you have learned how to ask "intelligent" questions to come to more informed choices.

Of course, I know lots of grads who learned none of this but earned a degree. And, again, JMO, but the least intelligent people I know are those who do not believe there are single, specific solutions to problems that can be addressed in many ways. All the simple problems in the world have been fixed; we are left with complex issues that require open minds that see a number of solutions working in concert to move forward.

And last, again JMO, but Her Majesty is a lifelong learner that helps others see alternatives, opportunities and complex solutions. She is not unintelligent; quite the contrary, she has an open and engaging mind. And she uses it to engage and influence others to open their minds.

And interestingly, when I look back on her life, I can find moments when she clung to accepted solutions only to learn (often very publicly) that other solutions needed to be sought. And, most admirably, we watched her very humbly learn that what had been "intelligent" in the past was no longer enough.

Lifelong learning is a powerful thing. And easily seen in the Queen's life.

 

[MARG]

Even the title of this thread screams it's bias. MOST AND LEAST INTELLIGENT ROYALS. How, one must ask, can you judge?

The substance of most posts relates to educational standards and anyone who is privileged to know people of QEII"s generation know they have lived a life of radical change, the great depression, two harrowing World Wars, not to mention a flu epidemic that wiped out millions. Add to that the Cold War and Proxy wars all over the world, from Korea to Vietnam to Iran to Afghanistan, and so it continues.

You cannot measure the intelligence of a person with a piece of paper. What you can do is mistake a superior education for a superior intellect, a mistake made by many who pride themselves in their general superiority. History has shown the flaw in that argument for centuries.

Women have published erudite and even brilliant works from poetry to physics, mathematics to medicine, all under male aliases in a world unready to accept them as equals. Were they brighter or dumber than their male counterparts because no one knew who they really were?

And then, to add insult to injury you say the Queen knows little and takes credit for a lot. You disparage her years of meeting with her Prime Minister once a week to be a totally apolitical sounding board. Her work on the boxes on a daily basis and the stability she provided that allowed the Empire to seague into a vibrant Commonwealth, all nothing to do with her?

Yeah right! I bet your average business and arts degree would have supplied all the education she would have needed to accomplish that!

 

[Gaudete]

Experience can educate a person far more than two or three years at a university. I would say that's absolutely the case with Queen Elizabeth II. And many others come to that. Look at Princess Michael of Kent. She didn't attend university but she's incredibly intelligent with a memory like a steel trap. I can't think of a more engaging historian. Princess Margaret had no university education but when it came to the arts, there were few who could rival her knowledge.

I don't think that older royals can be judged by today's standards where it's been bred into people that university is the only way forward. Considering the number of people with a media studies degree working as baristas in the UK right now, I wouldn't say it was.

 

[XeniaCasaraghi]

I still believe in the importance of higher education whether it be University, trade school, the military etc.
I personally don't buy into everyone is intelligent or having an education is not valuable.
It's sad that Albert Einstein's educational history has given people a mandate to think education isn't important.

 

[M. Payton]

Just coming to this forum is at times like an education for there is so much to learn here. It is not just the fashions or jewels, it is what is happening in different countries where there is a change going on in the monarchy of the country, like in Romania with the issue of who is going to take the place of being the heir since the king past away recently and with this daughter being labeled *Custodian of the Royal Family with no heir what then and then there is Spain with the issue of Catalina wanting to break from the entire country and form their own country and then Britain leaving the EU......all this is very educational to me and there is one thing a person should always do in life, **Never stop learning, make it a point to learn something new each day**, that in itself is taking steps to educate yourself. I am a history buff of ancient history and I love to read about the past and all that it entails, not just the facts, but how the people lived and died down to the food they eat......funny thing I learned in reading .........not being someone who drinks liquor so I did not know about Champagne many decades ago........so in reading a book on France one time it mentioned Crystal Champagne, curious me, dug right into that and today I so love a glass of Crystal Champagne, it is the little things that pop up like that we learn from. Degrees I am learning are a waste of time IMHO.....hear that sis....

 

[Denville]

I still believe in the importance of higher education whether it be University, trade school, the military etc.
I personally don't buy into everyone is intelligent or having an education is not valuable.
It's sad that Albert Einstein's educational history has given people a mandate to think education isn't important.

Education is important but there si not much point in it, where people don't have the intelligence to make use of it. All that happens is that the education is dumbed down to fit them..so that a country can say that 50% of its people have degrees. and education does not have to be in school or college, IMO intelligent poeple will learn, no matter what unless they are really unable to access books and tools of learning.
I don't think the queen is exceptionally intelligent, and she didn't have a very demanding education. But she's IMO a good average and has learned from her contact with people though I don't think she is ever or ever would be a great reader or into serious music or the arts.

 

[Osipi]

Hear you loud and clear. Degrees aren't really a waste of time if there is a specific goal that you want to do with one such as a career though.

I don't think intelligence is solely based on education either. That's book smarts and mastering a field of study. There's also creative intelligence that some people have that dream up things never before imagined. Then there are those that are blessed with people smarts. Lets also not forget street smarts which takes a whole lot of common sense and the intelligence on how to deal with the world around you.

Someone could be very intelligent and know their stuff yet lack the ability to do math in their head. We all find our own expertise in things and sometimes we're all jack of all trades. One thing that is certain though is that no one can ever say they're done learning until they draw their final breath.

So, I can't say who is the most intelligent or the least intelligent. Each person is unique with unique talents and unique stumbling points. Its not how much you know but how you use what you know that matters to me.

"The closer I get to the flame of knowledge, the further from me it goes."

 

[O-H Anglophile]

There are different forms of intelligence. And people learn in different ways. Just because someone is a square peg and doesn't fit into a round hole of cookie cutter formal education does not mean they are not intelligent.
Example-My aunt has four children-a college professor, a neonatal nurse, a physician and a carpenter. My cousin who is a carpenter is not less intelligent than his siblings but had more interest in working with his hands than sitting in a classroom. But he can build or fix anything-that requires innate skill and intelligence, it is just different.