page_title: Clan Macnab
section_title: 17th century and civil war
hierarchical_section_title: Clan Macnab / History / 17th century and civil war
caption_attribution_description: MacNab tartan, as published in the Vestiarium Scoticum. Modern thread count: G14 R4 Cr4 G8 Cr4 R24 Bk2.
context_page_description: Clan Macnab is a Highland Scottish clan.
context_section_description: Chief Finlay Macnab was a man of peace but protected his lands against the foraging royalist forces of James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose in the mid-1640s. However Finlay's son, who was known as Smooth John, did not follow his father's peaceful ways and actually joined forces with Montrose, contributing to the royal victory at the Battle of Kilsyth in 1645. Smooth John Macnab was appointed to garrison Montrose's own Kincardine Castle. General David Leslie, Lord Newark subsequently laid siege to the castle. The castle's whole garrison however, managed break through the Covenanter lines and fought their way clear, but John Macnab was captured. He was taken to Edinburgh and sentenced to death but escaped on the eve of his execution. He went on to lead three hundred of his clansmen at the Battle of Worcester in 1651.
  On 13 July 1680 the Chief of Clan Macnab and his followers fought at the Battle of Altimarlach in support of Sir John Campbell of Glenorchy and against George Sinclair of Keiss, in a dispute over who had the right to the lands and title of the Earl of Caithness. Campbell won a decisive victory in the battle, but Sinclair later turned to the law and was awarded the title and the lands as Earl of Caithness.
caption: Maknabbis tartan, as published in 1842 in Vestiarium Scoticum.
exif: {}