Cromwell declared to Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer that he had been a "ruffian [...] in his young days". In his youth he left his family in Putney and crossed the Channel to the Continent. Accounts of his activities in France, Italy and the Low Countries are sketchy and contradictory. The tale that he first became a mercenary and marched with the French army to Italy, where in 1503 he fought in the Battle of Garigliano, originally stems from a short story by the contemporary Italian novelist Matteo Bandello (in which Cromwell is a page to a foot-soldier, carrying his pike and helmet, rather than a soldier himself).