The castle of Montalban is situated to the south-west of Toledo, at a distance of six Spanish leagues. It resembles, in size and importance, some of the largest English castles; and justifies thus far the tradition preserved here, of its having for a short period, served for a royal prison--Juan the Second being said to have been confined there by his exasperated favourite, Don Alvaro de Luna. This story is not, however, confirmed by historians, several of whom I have vainly consulted, for the purpose of discovering it. Ferreras mentions the castle, or rather the town, which lies at a distance of two leagues (eight miles) from it, as having belonged to the queen of Juan the Second; who, he states, was deprived of it, against her will, in favour of Don Alvaro, and another place given her in exchange. On the confiscation of the favourite's possessions, previous to his decapitation, it reverted to the crown; and there is no further notice taken of it in the history, until the Emperor Charles the Fifth, confers on its then proprietor the title of Count. This personage was Don Alonzo Tellez Giron, third in descent from Juan Pacheco, Duke of Escalona, who had erected Montalban into a separate fief, in favour of one of his sons and his descendants, on the singular condition of the family name undergoing a change, on each successive descent. The alternate lords were to bear the names respectively of Giron and Pacheco. The first Count of Montalban married a daughter of D. Ladron de Guevara, proprietor, _à propos_ of castles, of that of Guevara, in the neighbourhood of Vitoria, constructed in an extremely singular form. The centre tower appears intended to imitate the castles of a chess-board. It is situated on the southern declivity of the chain of mountains, a branch of the Pyrenees, which separates the province of Guipuscoa from those of Navarre and Alava. On the opposite descent of the chain another fortress existed in remote times. Both were strongholds of robbers, whose descendants derived their family name, Ladron (robber) from their ancestors' profession. In a document signed by D. Garcia Ramirez, King of Navarre in 1135, D. Ladron de Guevara, governor of Alava, figures among the grandees of the kingdom; the descendants were afterwards called lords of Oñate, and the castle is at present the property of the Count de Oñate, a grandee of the first class. From its occupying a point _stratégique_ of considerable importance, commanding the plain of Alava, and the high road as it enters the valley of Borunda, it has been in recent times occupied by the Carlists, and fortified.