FAMOUS NATIVES Certainly he was one of Bourn's famous natives, Cecil Lord Burleigh, the great Lord Treasurer, being another, of whom it was said that "his very enemies sorrowed for his death." Job Hartop, born 1550, who sailed with Sir John Hawkins and spent ten years in the galleys, and thirteen more in a Spanish prison, but came at last safe home to Bourn, deserves honourable mention, and Worth, the Parisian costumier, was also a native who has made himself a name; but one of the most noteworthy of all Bourn's residents was Robert Manning, born at Malton, and canon of the Gilbertine Priory of Six Hills. He is best known as Robert de Brunne, from his long residence in Bourn, where he wrote his "Chronicle of the History of England." This is a Saxon or English metrical version of Wace's Norman-French translation of the "Chronicles of Geoffrey of Monmouth," and of Peter Langtoft's "History of England," which was also written in French. This work he finished in 1338, on the 200th anniversary of the founding of the abbey; and in 1303, when he was appointed "Magister" in Bourn Abbey, he wrote his "Handlynge of Sin," also a translation from the French, in the preface to which he has the following lines:—
For men unlearned I undertook
In English speech to write this book,
For many be of such mannere
That tales and rhymes will gladly hear.
On games and feasts and at the ale
Men love to hear a gossip's tale
That leads perhaps to villainy
Or deadly sin, or dull folly.
For such men have I made this rhyme
That they may better spend their time.
To all true Christians under sun,
To good and loyal men of Brunn,
And specially all by name
O' the Brotherhood of Sempringhame,
Robert of Brunn now greeteth ye,
And prays for your prosperity.
Robert was a translator and no original composer, but he was the first after Layamon, the Worcestershire monk who lived just before him, to write English in its present form. Chaucer followed him, then Spenser, after which all was easy. But he was, according to Freeman, the pioneer who created standard
