che non è legittimo, ha gran potere col papa; è uomo di gran maneggio e di grandissima autorità; tuttavia sa vivere col papa, nè fa alcuna cosa di conto se prima non domanda al papa. Ora si ritrova a Fiorenza a governare quella città’’".</ref> Statesmanship While Cardinal Giulio wasn't officially appointed Vice-Chancellor of the Church (second-in-command) until 9 March 1517, in practice Leo X governed in partnership with his cousin from the beginning. Initially, his duties centered primarily on administering Church affairs in Florence and conducting international relations. In January 1514, King Henry VIII of England appointed him Cardinal protector of England. The following year, King Francis I of France nominated him to become Archbishop of Narbonne, and in 1516 named him cardinal protector of France. In a scenario typical of Cardinal Giulio's independent-minded statesmanship, the respective kings of England and France, recognizing a conflict of interest in Giulio protecting both countries simultaneously, brought pressure to bear on him to resign his other protectorship; to their dismay, he refused. Cardinal Giulio's foreign policy was shaped by the idea of "la libertà d'Italia," which aimed to free Italy and the Church from French and Imperial domination. This became clear in 1521, when a personal rivalry between King Francis I and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V boiled over into war in northern Italy. Francis I expected Giulio, France's cardinal protector, to support him; but Giulio perceived Francis as threatening the Church's independence—particularly the latter's control of Lombardy, and his use of the Concordat of Bologna to control the Church in France. At the time, the Church wanted Emperor Charles V to combat Lutheranism, then growing in Germany. So Cardinal Giulio negotiated an alliance on behalf of the Church, to support the Holy Roman Empire against France. That autumn, Giulio helped lead a victorious Imperial-Papal army over the French in Milan and Lombardy. While his strategy of shifting alliances to liberate the Church and Italy from foreign domination proved disastrous during his reign as Pope Clement VII, during the reign of Leo X it skillfully maintained a balance of power among the competing international factions seeking to influence the Church. Armed conflicts Giulio de’ Medici led numerous armed conflicts as a cardinal. Commenting on this, his contemporary Francesco Guicciardini wrote that Cardinal Giulio was better suited to arms than to the priesthood. He served as papal legate to the army in a campaign