Hereward the Last of The English by Charles Kingsley

A proud man was Ivo Taillebois, as he rode next morning out of Spalding town, with hawk on fist, and hound at heel, and a dozen men-at-arms at his back, who would, on due or undue cause shown, hunt men while he hunted game.

An adventurer from Anjou, brutal, ignorant, and profligate, -- low-born, too (for his own men whispered, behind his back, that he was no more than his name hinted, a wood-cutter's son), he still had his deserts. Valiant he was, cunning, and skilled in war. He and his troop of Angevine ruttiers had fought like tigers by William's side, at Hastings; and he had been rewarded with many a manor, which had been Earl Algar's, and should now have been Earl Edwin's, or Morcar's, or, it may be, Hereward's own.