Sidebar for Ironsides: If you want to punish a Duke, work on his or her vassals. Get them to join another duchy. Create a new Duchy out of his city, and appoint your own lackeys to any regions in his former duchy with vacancies. Create a new duchy out of his city, and then stab him and appoint yourself Duke and Margrave. Sure, it is hard to get rid of a Duke in certain realm configurations... but do you remember how hard it used to be? Dukes own the means of production. Totally. They can even choose to reserve some of that production (land) for themselves to enhance their power further. Generally speaking, rulers have given it all away in fief to dukes.
