[Discuss] Dukes still not recognised properly?

[Samuel Knowlton]

>>  If your Duke  secedes, it's your feudal duty to join him.

That's not technically true in most classic feudal structures. A knight 
swearing an oath to the Duke of York would have a lot of language about 
fealty to the Crown of England in there -- even though his direct fealty is 
to the Duke, his 'ultimate' allegience is still to the crown, such that the 
Crown's insistence that the real Duke is their puppet replacement for the 
newly-seceded Duke of York means, minimally, that knights are going to have 
a tough time of it.

In less centralized powers (the HRE, perhaps?) where the person at the top 
of the feudal pyramid doesn't command a whole lot of authority, you would be 
correct.