The signature on Edwin's canvases with his initials and a heart was often questioned and raised comment and deserves some explanation. The origin for choosing a heart to embellish his signature has been traced back in time to the 14th century.

It is said that a certain Sir James Douglas was the friend of the Scottish King, Robert the Bruce (1274-1329). The King defeated the English at Bannockburn in 1314 and won recognition of independent Scotland in 1328 the year before he died. After the monarch's death, Sir James departed for a Crusade taking with him Bruce's heart, which the King had charged him to bury in the Holy Sepulcher — the tomb of Jesus outside Jerusalem, regarded as a Christian shrine.

When travelling through Spain, Sir James was requested by the King of Aragon to aid him in a struggle against the Moslem people, the Moors. In the following mighty battle, which was fought on 26th August 1331, Sir James feeling himself mortally wounded, paused and giving a mighty throw, hurled the silver casket containing the heart of Bruce into the midst of his enemy, shouting —

Sir James was afterwards found dead and thus ended the noble and valiant warrior. He had been engaged in some fifty combats and encounters with the English and was thirteen times victorious against the Turks and Saracens, all in the space of twenty-four years. He was evidently quite a man.

It is for this reason that Edwin Douglas decided to take the symbol of the Douglas heart of his ancestor to embellish his own signature on his canvases.

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