Lundy is supposed, not upon very certain authority, to have been called "Herculea" in Roman times; and there is no record, nor even tradition, of how it came by its present name, only a vague conjecture of a Scandinavian origin, of which I have already spoken. But there are evidences of a much earlier occupation than the Roman--indeed, so far as I know, there have been no Roman remains found yet upon the island--and it is no unlikely supposition that the great skeleton of the Giant's Grave was some such feared and piratical chieftain as the first recorded lord of the island, the fierce de Marisco. These Mariscos were a branch of the great family of Montmorency, and they were ever a thorn in the side of their liege-lord, whether in England, Ireland, or Lundy. They must have owned Lundy since the days of the Norman Conquest, if they had not seized it before; for the great castle Marisco, built upon the extreme verge of the cliffs, commanding the bay and the landing-place, and overlooking in a wide sweep all the southern coast of the island, was already built in the eleventh century. From this impregnable fortress, with its massive walls nine feet in thickness, its squat, strong Norman turrets, its encircling fosse, and the perpendicular cliffs by which its seaward wall was made unscalable, Sir Jordan de Marisco used to sally with his retainers, making war on all alike, levying toll--_blackmail_, if ever there was, in the true meaning of the word--disobeying the laws of the land, and outraging the dictates of common humanity. So that, though he had married a Plantagenet, a blood relation of the King's, Henry II declared his estate of Lundy forfeited, and granted it to the Knights-Templars. Whether peace was made between Sir Jordan and Henry, or whether Henry was not strong enough to enforce his edict (though he was a powerful and determined monarch), I do not know; but in 1199, in the reign of King John, Sir Jordan's son William following in his father's evil ways, the grant of Lundy was confirmed to the Templars.