Legend of the Locked Heart
Following his 1315 victory at the Battle of Bannochburn (the same battle dramatized in the final scenes of the movie Braveheart), Robert the Bruce was crowned King of Scotland. This victory, in which Robert the Bruce led his army against a superior English force, marked the end of the tyrannical rule of the English king Edward I--the cruel pagan known as Longshanks. You may remember seeing this battle dramatized in the final scenes of the movie Braveheart.
Symon, the second of Lee, won fame for himself and for his family fighting alongside Robert the Bruce at this historic battle, and was knighted for his loyal service.
Prior to the Battle of Bannochburn, in his quest to free Scotland from English domination, Robert the Bruce murdered an English emissary on holy ground and was excommunicated from the church as a result. This haunted the Bruce so much so that years later, in 1329, as the king lay on his death bed, he commanded that upon his death his knights would remove his heart and take it on crusade in the Holy Land in the hopes that this would atone for the crime he had committed years earlier.
That same year (1329), a band of Scottish knights set out to honor the the last wish of their dead king. Their leader, Sir James Douglas, carried the king's heart in an ornate silver case hung about his neck. Beside him rode Sir Symon Lockard who carried the key to the case, such responsibility being considered a high honor.
Sir James Douglas was a fromidable mercenary knight. He was known as "Douglas the Black" by his enemies and as "the Good Sir James" by those he called friends. Sir Douglas was the kind of soldier you want on your side, but whom you'd never want to have to go against.
The knights sailed to Spain where they felt obligated to assist a Spanish king in driving an invading army out of his country. Unfortunately, the crusade was ended prematurely when Sir James Douglas was killed in the ensuing battle. Sir Symon rescued the heart of Robert the Bruce and returned it safely to Scotland where it was buried at Melrose Abbey.
To commemorate the honor done to the Lockard family, the heart within a fetterlock has from then on been included in the arms of the family. The deed is also remembered in the family motto, "Corda Serato Pando," which means "I lay open locked hearts." Some have even gone so far as to change their name to Lockheart, which has lead to the variety of spellings we see today.
While the legend of the locked heart was widely held as a myth borne of the romantic days of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. More recently, a small silver casket was discovered beneath a piece of flagstone in the floor of Melrose Abbey. When the casket was X-rayed, the contents were determined to be the remains of a human heart. Believing this to be the buried remains of the heart of the national hero Robert the Bruce, researchers replaced the casket where it had been found, under the floor in Melrose Abbey.
In addition to their new name, the family gained a precious heirloom on the Crusade: the mysterious charm known as the Lee Penny Talisman.