XXXI Ivo Taille-Bois
Among the martial adventurers of the Continent whom William the Norman, before sailing to the Conquest, allured to his standard, and whose services he rewarded with the lands and lordships of the Saxons, slain, imprisoned, or expatriated during his progress from the coast of Sussex to the verge of “mountainous Northumberland,” one of the most unpopular with the vanquished islanders was Ivo Taille-Bois.
Nevertheless, Ivo Taille-Bois was a remarkable man in his way. A native of Angers, he came to the Conquest as a captain of Angevin auxiliaries, with a spirit equally mercenary and unscrupulous. Fortune favoured his career; and having done much work from which a Norman noble would have shrunk, he found that his aspirations after wealth and power were likely to be realized. It was on the ruins of the great House of Leofric that Ivo eventually contrived to exalt himself.
When Edwin was killed, under circumstances so touching, and Morkar was imprisoned, under circumstances so melancholy, Ivo Taille-Bois received in marriage Lucy, the youngest sister of the two earls, and with her a large part of their hereditary domains. This immediately made Ivo a man of importance; and as the bulk of his land was situated about Spalding, towards the borders of Cambridge and Lincoln, he called himself Viscount of Spalding, and began to let the inhabitants feel his territorial power in such a way, that they cursed the chance which had metamorphosed a captain of mercenaries into a feudal lord.
Among a band of conquerors such as accompanied William the Norman to England, there must always be many more or less tyrannical to the vanquished; but the tyranny of Ivo Taille-Bois was something by itself. He was so fond of outraging the feelings and invading the rights of the populace, that he seemed to indulge in it as a luxury; and no humility on their part could in the slightest degree mitigate his violence. It was in vain that they paid all the rents he demanded; that they rendered all the services he required; that they appeared in his presence on bended knee; and that they addressed him in the most deferential tone: he only became the more cruel and more exacting.
The account given by a contemporary chronicler of the oppressions practised by Ivo Taille-Bois on the inhabitants of the district subject to his sway is sufficient, even at this distance of time, to excite strong indignation. Though they rendered him all possible honour, he showed them neither affability nor kindness; on the contrary, he vexed them, imprisoned them, tormented them, and tortured them. Often he hounded his dogs on their cattle while quietly grazing, drove their beasts into the marshes, drowned them in ponds, broke their backs or limbs, and by mutilating them in various ways, rendered them unfit for service.
Ivo seemed to delight in cruelty for cruelty’s sake; and under such treatment, the people who were his victims gradually gave way to despair. Selling what little they still possessed, they sought in other lands the peace no longer to be found at home. Ivo, however, feeling the necessity of somebody to oppress, and looking round, fixed his eyes on some Saxon monks.
It happened that there stood near Spalding, and by the gates of the terrible Angevin, a religious house which was dependent on the abbey of Croyland and inhabited by some of the Croyland monks. Ivo, having forced the peasantry of the neighbourhood to decamp, turned his attention to this religious house, and soon succeeded in making it an earthly purgatory. The monks attempted to save themselves by refraining from giving the slightest offence; but this only added to his bitterness. He lamed their horses and cattle, killed their sheep and poultry, attacked their servants on the highway, and oppressed their tenants in every way which his ingenuity could invent.
Nevertheless, the monks held on. Not by any means inclined to yield their home without a struggle, they did all they could, by prayers, supplications, and presents to his dependents, to soften Ivo’s heart. But they were utterly unsuccessful. They found that matters became worse and worse. Their patience and long-suffering came to an end. They packed up their books and their sacred vessels, and committing their house to God’s keeping, prepared to depart. “We have tried all, and suffered all,” said they; “now let us begone;” and shaking the dust from their feet, they repaired to Croyland.
On the departure of the monks Ivo was rejoiced beyond measure. He immediately despatched a messenger to his native town of Angers, and requested to have some holy men sent over to England. A prior and five monks soon appeared, and took possession of the religious house at Spalding. The Abbot of Croyland, who was an Anglo-Saxon, protested against their installation, and complained to the king’s council against proceedings so lawless. But no redress could be obtained; and Ivo Taille-Bois continued in the daily perpetration of enormities, for which, had he lived two centuries later, he would have been tried before a jury at Westminster, and hanged at the Nine Elms.