In 1201 the nation’s nobility gathered there to pledge allegiance to the future Alexander II, aged just 4, in the presence of his father William the Lion. In the fourteenth century, the Regent of Scotland died in Musselburgh after a long illness during which he was cared for by the local people. When his successor offered to reward the people, they refused saying that they were only doing their duty. Thus, the townspeople became famed for their honesty: since then Musselburgh has been known as the ‘Honest Toun. The New Bridge seen below was built in 1806 and designed by John Rennie the Elder a Scottish civil engineer born in 1761 in Phantassie, near East Linton