Julius II was a soldier, and his goal was to free the entire Italian Peninsula from subjection to foreign powers. However, only Venice and the Old Swiss Confederacy were ready to field armies against the French. Julius II began hostilities by deposing and excommunicating his vassal, Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, who supported France. Louis XII retaliated in September 1510 by convoking a synod of French bishops at Tours, which judged that the pope had no right to make war upon a foreign prince and if the pope undertook such a war, the foreign prince had the right to invade the Papal States and to withdraw his subjects' obedience to the pope. The synod also threatened Julius II with a general council. Julius II ignored the French synod and again assumed personal command of the army in Northern Italy. In August 1510, at Bologna, he became dangerously ill but then recovered. In October, he negotiated an anti-French alliance. In the beginning, the alliance included only the Papal States, Venice and Spain, but in November, England joined and was soon followed by the emperor and by Switzerland. The Papal States marched against Mirandola, which was captured on 20 January 1511. On 23 May 1511, contingents of the French army captured Bologna from the papal troops and reinstated Annibale II Bentivoglio.