By Robin Jamieson, retired psychologist
After reading Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York, by Andrew Lownie, I was shocked to find myself, a lifelong socialist and republican, almost feeling sorry for the Royal family and Andrew in particular.
They are a product of selective breeding for a thousand years, descended from the kings, kaisers and tsars of Europe, the upper echelons of a landowning aristocracy, but there is no reason to expect that they are anything but an ordinary average family in regard to their intellectual abilities. Andrew has pure royal blood and even his ex-wife and sister-in-law (Fergie and Diana) were descended from Charles II.
Andrew was, it seems, well-nourished and grew big and strong with good co-ordination and motor skills. He was good at sport, could hit a golf ball and ride a horse. No-one questioned his competence as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands War. His ex-wife said he was boring and others find him abrupt.
His failure to relate to people, either in the command structure of the Royal Navy or when trying to have a conversation with diplomats or trade delegations, may not be just an expression of arrogance, but the result of a much simpler lack of verbal ability.
With the benefit of the most expensive and intensive tuition available, he passed two subjects at GCE 0 level and his education went no further. From Lownie’s descriptions, I would expect him to have a limited vocabulary, poor mental arithmetic, and very little understanding of abstract or philosophical concepts.
Tests like the WAIS, (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Test) are designed so that most people in an average family, such as the house of Windsor, get a verbal IQ and a performance IQ between 80 and 120, with the average being always 100. It would not be surprising if Charles, with a higher level of educational attainment, produced a verbal IQ above average, while Andrew’s verbal IQ would be in the lower end of the normal range, perhaps even as low as 78, and his performance IQ would be a bit above that.
Many people can live a useful and fulfilling life with verbal intelligence below average; it is not a problem. He could have been happy driving a road train across Australia or flying a doorless helicopter in the Kimberleys.
Problems might arise if a person with limited comprehension is told from birth that he is in some way above others, that he is a Duke, a Prince, a vice-admiral, that he represents his country in International trade. Or even, though now seventh in line, that he could be a king, especially when he has Royal protection and enough money to fulfil all his desires for leisure travel food and sex, with an endless supply of beautiful young women and some “effeminate young men”.
Royal ancestors were much worse than Andrew, perhaps for comparable reasons and were not held to account. There was no parliamentary scrutiny before Charles II and Henry VIII could get away with beheading his wives. Princes had mistresses and produced royal bastards, named as fitz ***, while the sexual exploitation of the lower classes was normal for the aristocracy.
Today they are haunted by the ghosts of Oliver Cromwell and Queen Victoria, expected to restrain their impulses while surrounded by video cameras and smart phones.
Andrew’s problem is the continued existence of a hereditary elite which can turn an ordinary man, not too bright, into something resembling a monster. As a socialist I stand for the liberation of the Royal Family from all of their titles, their land, their obscene wealth, their control of the armed forces and the established church, from relentless public scrutiny and criticism, from their notoriety and veneration, so that they can learn to live in the real world.
[Photos of royalty from Wikimedia Commons, here]
