Iluvbertie
Imperial Majesty
- Joined
- Jun 29, 2004
- Messages
- 14,460
- City
- Bathurst
- Country
- Australia
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.