The ancient chronicler of the Abbey of
Croyland (Ingulf) says:
"All the people of that district honoured Ivo with the greatest
attention, and supplicated him on bended knee, bestowed on him all
the honour they could, and the services they were bound to render;
still he did not repay their confidence, but tortured and harassed,
worried and annoyed, imprisoned and tormented them, every day
loading them with fresh burdens, till he drove them, by his
cruelty, to seek other and milder lords. Against the monastery and
the people of Croyland he raged with the utmost fury; he would
chase their cattle with dogs, drown them in the lakes, mutilate
them in various ways, or break their backs or legs."
It is pleasing to learn that he met some punishment for his evil
deeds. Hereward took him prisoner, very ignominiously, and held him
a captive for a long time, to the delight of the poor vassals; he
fell under the displeasure of William Rufus, in 1089, as a partisan
of Robert and was sent home to Anjou deprived of all his ill-gotten
wealth. He was, however, allowed to return under Henry, and died of
paralysis in 1114 at his manor of Spalding, where, the old
chronicler pithily says, "he was buried amidst the loudly expressed
exultation of all his neighbours.
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