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It kind of depends. Standing on his own a king is always a sovereign ruler. Feudal rulers were all in agreement on that. You could have a rank equal to that of a king in an empire, but then you called yourself something different, e. g. a Royal Duke or a viceroy (this latter if appointed by the Emperor or Empress). It is also important to note that you could have a King or Queen of England who simultaneously was also Emperor/Empress of the British Empire. On the other hand, you could also be the sovereign ruler of a country and at the same time Duke (or similar lesser rank) of fiefdoms outside your actual kingdom. This was the case of the Danish Kings for quite a while; apart from being Kings, they were also Dukes of Schleswig and Holstein. But the latter two were not part of Denmark. They were German fiefdoms and enjoyed separate rights and laws. This triggered an actual rebellion when the Danish King Frederik the Seventh started to treat them as part of Denmark in 1848 and later on the infamous 1864 war against Prussia and Austria when the singularly incompetent and inept government we had at the time outright attempted to annex them into the kingdom itself. And of course, in 1920 we had the Easter Crisis when Denmark was offered the return of both plus the land the Prussians had taken away from us in 1864 as part of the Allied attempt to dismember Germany. The Danish government at the time possessed both brains and foresight beyond their current term (nearly unique for our political history) and elected to solve the issue through a plebiscite. They drew the border as close to the 50% want to go to Germany/50% want to go to Denmark point as possible. Stunningly, this meant that Schleswig and Holstein preferred to stay German. Then our not very bright King Christian the 10th threw a hissy fit and fired the government because this reasonable solution did not suit his Royal Ego. Ah well. Back to the King point again: feudal lands were so anal about this that when Prussia attempted to establish itself as a monarchy, the hapless Friedrich had to make do with the title 'King in Prussia' rather than 'King of Prussia' as the latter would have made his neighbours twitch and might have caused a war. And he had to do a delicate diplomatic dance to get even that much. They could be incredibly anal about that title sometimes.

There is a very simple way to determine if someone is a King...

BTW, the ultrasound reading came back normal, according to the nurse who ran it. I still have to have a follow-up appointment with the doctor to officially get the good news. Today, Monday, December 2nd, a date which will live ... erm, scratch that. It's just a Monday. An extremely early Monday. I've got an 8:30 a.m. appointment with my foot doctor to go over the MRI and figure out why the hell the ball of my right foot hurts so much on occasion. I'm hoping it's something he can fix surgically so it'll go away once and for all. He's a good surgeon, otherwise I wouldn't be wishing this. Tomorrow, Tuesday, at a much more reasonable hour, I get to meet the physician's assistant who's been injecting my knees with GELSYN-3 and tell him the injections haven't done a damned bit of good. I'm going to request arthroscopic surgery on my left knee. If my main knee doctor refuses, I'm going to ask for a second opinion. You see, I've now read the MRI report on my knees, and it turns out he left out a LOT of stuff when he explained what was going on with my left knee. Brace yourself - here comes the report: === cut here === FINDINGS: LIGAMENTS: Low-grade interstitial tear of the anterior fibers of the distal MCL. The PCL is intact. ACL and LCL complex are intact. MENISCI AND FEMORAL-TIBIAL HYALINE CARTILAGE Myxoid degeneration of the posterior horn of the medial meniscus. Small free edge radial tear of the posterior horn of the lateral meniscus. Myxoid degeneration of the posterior horn of the lateral meniscus. Scattered partial thickness tearing of the cartilage of the medial compartment. Few areas of suspected full-thickness fissuring with partial delamination within the lateral compartment and mild subchondral cystic change and marrow edema of the lateral femoral condyle. PATELLOFEMORAL JOINT AND EXTENSOR MECHANISM A diffuse full thickness chondral loss of the lateral patellar facet, trochlea, and median ridge with subchondral schlerosis and joint line osteophytes. Thickening and edema of the superior patellar fat pad which cam be seen in settling of patellar fat-pad impingement. OSSEOUS/BONE MARROW Tricompartmental osteophytes. Patchy marrow within the proximal tibia which may represent heterogeneous red marrow. Subchondral sclerosis and edema within the lateral femoral condyle. GENERAL Small joint effusion. Mild subcutaneous edema surrounding the knee. === stop cutting already === Good to know that I can still transcribe a document like that - phew! Anyway, that's just my left knee. My right knee isn't as bad. Still, I don't understand why he said my left knee showed signs of normal wear for someone my age. My right knee, maybe, but my left knee? Hardly. I'm making back-up copies of everything I take to the doctor and having them ready for a second opinion.

I may not be approved by your insurance provider, but I've already developed more than two opinions about the medical professionals you have been seeing...