Nungate

These swans were quite happy watching over their six growing cygnets at the peaceful river at Haddington and no doubt unaware of the devastation that their ancestors must have witnessed beside this bridge.
Haddington is a peaceful town now but it hasn’t always been so. In the Middle Ages it was the fourth biggest town in Scotland after Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Roxburgh. As it lay on the main route from Edinburgh to Berwick it was often attacked with the armies crossing the River Tyne here. Although there are records of an old bridge standing in 1280 the Nungate Bridge is believed to have been erected in stone in the 15th century after the Siege of Haddington with the Town Council records indicating that stones from the parish church were used to repair it in 1659
During the 13thC Haddington was destroyed three times and again in 1356 when Edward III invaded Scotland and then it suffered great destruction in 1548 during the “Rough Wooing.”
The English Henry VIII wanted his young son (Edward VI) to marry the five year old Mary Queen of Scots and so the English army seized the town and held it against the Scots and their French allies for eighteen months to force the Scots to abide by Henry’s wishes. Instead the Scots signed The Treaty of Haddington in 1548 whereby the French agreed to help the Scots against the English invaders and Mary was promised to the young Dauphin of France. The English forces then reduced the town to ruins.

(Mary Queen of Scots Links 3)