Most and Least Intelligent Royals


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Which royal is the best educated/intelligent and which one is not, based on your opinions?

Forgive me if a thread has been created for this already...
 
I would say very educated/smart are: Prince Constantijn, the late Prince Friso, Masako, Emperor Akihito, Letizia, the Duke of Gloucester

Don´t want to say who I think is not smart :D
 
I know that Letizia has her Masters in Audiovisual journalism.

Masako went to Harvard University
 
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What about Crown Prince Haakon? He seems like a brainy type, as well as good-hearted.
 
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Máxima. Her credentials are pretty impressive.
 
Which royal is the best educated/intelligent and which one is not, based on your opinions?

Educated and intelligent are not necessarily the same thing :flowers:
The dutch princes are very well educated and especially P.Constantijn and Friso are said to be highly intelligent as are their wives.
 
the late Prince Friso was very intelligent. His widow Mabel is far more intelligent than her clothing choices make her look LOL
 
What about Crown Prince Haakon? He seems like a brainy type, as well as good-hearted.

Haakon has a BA from Cal Berkley and MSc? in Economics from the London School of Economics.


Princess Mary has a BA in a combined degree in both Law and Commerce from the Univ. of Tasmania. She tutored English to French students in Paris.


Queen Maxima has a BA in Economics from the Univ. of Argentina.
 
I am not sure that I believe college degrees are the only way to measure anyone's actual intelligence. They certainly do indicate that a person is disciplined and focused, but not necessarily brilliant.

Succinctly stated by Lee-Z, educated and intelligent do not always mean the same thing. One of the most brilliant men in American history, Abraham Lincoln, had 18 months of formal schooling.

That said, I personally think Princess Caroline, Princess Masako, Princess Maxima and Princess Claire of Belgium, Princess Mabel and the late Prince Friso all seem(ed) like very highly intelligent people.
 
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Most of the current CPs have an impressive level of higher education and seem very intelligent to me, they certainly understand the value of good education! CP Haakon,Maxima,Mary,Victoria,Letizia & Felipe of Spain, Masako and Naruhito from Japan are definitely all very capable, smart and eloquent.
The Princesses from Luxembourg are also good role models in terms of education and academic performance!
From the "old guard" I would say that Beatrix from the Netherlands is academic,level-headed and possesses good leadership skills. While Queen Elizabeth II did not receive a lot of formal education she seems to be highly intelligent,knowledgeable and gifted. Tony Blair always said that the Queen is one of the smartest, cleverest, wisest people he ever met. He said that one of the things he misses most about being PM is getting to have a weekly meeting with the Queen.
 
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Educated and intelligent are not necessarily the same thing :flowers:
The dutch princes are very well educated and especially P.Constantijn and Friso are said to be highly intelligent as are their wives.

Máxima. Her credentials are pretty impressive.

i totally agree. the dutch all seem very clever royals. friso (a graduate of berkeley and an aeronautical engineer) certainly seemed like a brilliant mind. maxima (achieving high positions in several financial services firms and a multi-lingual person), laurentien (berkeley graduate) and mabel (having worked for some impressive companies and a multi-lingual person) are all obviously very accomplished ladies.

"Princess Claire of Luxembourg (née Claire Margareta Lademacher; born 21 March 1985) is a German bioethics researcher currently pursuing a doctorate in the field of organ donation ethics at Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum."

(from her wikipedia page)

I think Claire is one of the smartest ladies to marry into royalty. Her sister in law Stephanie is very well-educated, as well.

another impressive bunch of ladies in luxembourg indeed. both stephanie and claire are fine examples of well-cultivated people in my opinion.

She tutored English to French students in Paris.

you will have to excuse me, but to me teaching your own native language is no particular sign of smartness.
 
I would say very educated/smart are: Prince Constantijn, the late Prince Friso, Masako, Emperor Akihito, Letizia, the Duke of Gloucester
I of course agree regarding Masako and Emperor Akihito (about the others I am not sufficiently informed) but would like to mention that Akihito is an example of somebody who, albeit undoubtedly very intelligent (he is a world-famous ichthyologist), never received an academic degree. He became a student of the Department of Economics and Politics at Gakushuin University in Tokyo but because of an official trip abroad, he missed many classes and, as a consequence, was not allowed to regularly advance with his classmates, but only as an auditor. That is why he never officially graduated from Gakushuin University.

Besides, I would like to add Emperor Akihito´s uncle, Prince Mikasa (born 1915), to the list of smart royals:
After the war, Prince Mikasa enrolled in the Literature Faculty of Tokyo University and pursued advanced studies in archeology, Middle Eastern studies, and Semitic languages. Since 1954, he has directed the Japanese Society for Middle East Studies. He is honorary president of the Japan Society of Orientology. The Prince has held visiting and guest faculty appointments in Middle Eastern studies and archeology at various universities in Japan and abroad, including: Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, Aoyama Gakuin, Tokyo Woman's Christian University, the University of London, the University of Hokkaido and the University of Shizuoka.
Wikipedia
 
His widow Mabel is far more intelligent than her clothing choices make her look LOL

:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO: This was the joke of the day and is so very true.

I agree that intelligent and educated are not the same thing. In general, this generation of princesses is far more educated than the previous one, which is only natural given the transformation in societies regarding women's education.

To me, the most impressive are the dutch. All of the 3 children of Princess Beatrix married very inteligent women and the men themselves have very good credentials.

Princess Claire probably has the most impressive academic curriculum. Does any other royal have a phD?

I would also add Prince Charles to the list. Though his academic curriculum isn't very impressive (he never graduated from Cambridge, did he?), Charles has proved in his life to be a very inteligent person. He's one of those examples that inteligent and educated are different, IMO.
 
Succinctly stated by Lee-Z, educated and intelligent do not always mean the same thing. One of the most brilliant men in American history, Abraham Lincoln, had 18 months of formal schooling.

Another case is Albert Einstein. He was a drop out and was told by his teacher that he would never amount to anything.

An education gives one the means to acquire knowledge. With that knowledge, it takes intelligence and wisdom to utilize it. Degrees on a wall only show what knowledge was sufficiently learned to gain the diploma.

As far as the royals go, I can't think of one among them that I would classify as an air head yet none of them come to mind either for the Nobel Prize. Their best teacher is experience and plain old common sense.
 
Education and intelligence is absolutely not the same thing as several has pointed out.

To quote the late author Arthur C. Clarke's definition of an intellectual: "Someone who has been educated above his/her intelligence".
 
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Another case is Albert Einstein. He was a drop out and was told by his teacher that he would never amount to anything.

An education gives one the means to acquire knowledge. With that knowledge, it takes intelligence and wisdom to utilize it. Degrees on a wall only show what knowledge was sufficiently learned to gain the diploma.

As far as the royals go, I can't think of one among them that I would classify as an air head yet none of them come to mind either for the Nobel Prize. Their best teacher is experience and plain old common sense.

Great post Osipi, especially the Einstein example and your last paragraph.;) I also agree with julliete regarding Charles, Prince of Wales. I have always felt that he was a highly intelligent, underrated man.

I know several people in my own life who take great pride in the fact that they have graduated from college and hold academic degrees. But having a conversation with them is a mundane, even depressing experience. :sad: Several of them completely lack imagination,empathy, humor, a sense of historical perspective...all of the qualities which in my own humble opinion makes a man or woman a truly exceptional person.

Emotional intelligence can sometimes be even more useful than academic intelligence, imo.
 
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In my opinion, one of the most intelligent Royals is Prince Bertrand, Prince Imperial of Brazil. Some people say His Imperial and Royal Highness is one of the most intelligent people in Brazil.
 
How are we defining smart? Book smart? Educated smart? You can have a degree and be completely stupid in common sense matters.
IMO there are no smart or not smart royals. We don't know them, we don't know they're education scores, we don't know if they don't know what common sense is.
 
Lacking in the intelligence department is very difficult to judge but i think King Charles II of Spain is generally thought of as intellectually impaired (but than he was impaired in other ways as well...)
 
Princess Kiko is another royal with a MA. People always forget to mention this.
Would Prince Carl Philip be regarded as one of the lesser intelligent ones?
 
Would Prince Carl Philip be regarded as one of the lesser intelligent ones?

I don't know him well enough to judge this; to me he seems to be a bit undecisive in what he wants to do with his life, but this says nothing about his intelligence-level...
 
As Lumutqueen and others have pointed out there is not just one type of intelligence, and the ability to obtain a university degree is not always a reliable barometer of how smart a person is.....or isn't.
 
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Absolutely; there's book smart and then there's street smart. ;)
 
Okay then, who is just the smartest, regardless of college degree?
I don't think Prince Carl Philip is dumb, but he comes across as a bit shy.
 
Okay then, who is just the smartest, regardless of college degree? I don't think Prince Carl Philip is dumb, but he comes across as a bit shy.

Eh? How are we determining "smart" if not by education? Even then having a thousand degrees only makes you appear book smart. I'm also not sure how you can connect shyness and intelligence.

Bottom line is we don't know these people nor have never met them or spent a decent length of time with them to judge "smartness", street or book or anything else.
 
Eh? How are we determining "smart" if not by education? Even then having a thousand degrees only makes you appear book smart. I'm also not sure how you can connect shyness and intelligence.

Bottom line is we don't know these people nor have never met them or spent a decent length of time with them to judge "smartness", street or book or anything else.
I don't see why we can't discuss it here - I'm detecting argumentativeness on your part. I was not trying to argue - I was merely asking a question. And the reason I mentioned Carl Philip's shyness is because IME sometimes shy people are perceived as being unintelligent.

You are right - we don't know any of these people. And if that's the case, why have the forum at all, based on your logic? Everything else concerning royals is discussed here.

If you don't like the thread subject, you don't need to respond to it if it bothers you so much!
 
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Common sense is the most important. It is also important as to how these people's intelligence is used to improve their country. That is their job after all. I think it's ridiculous that many of the royal houses are paid millions of dollars and most of what they do is fluff. They should be doing things like promoting their countries around the world. eg. trying to attract tourists and promoting industry.
 
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