Blood, Battle & Marriage
In the Highland world, no clan stood alone. The MacNabs bound themselves to their neighbours through ancient kinship, battle brotherhood, and the blood of marriage. These are the alliances that shaped nine centuries of MacNab history.
In the Highland world, no clan was an island. Survival, power, and the ability to prosecute a feud or defend a territory all depended on who stood beside you. The MacNab alliances fall into three distinct types: ancient blood kinship through the royal Dál Riatan line, military brotherhood forged in specific battles, and marriage alliances that bound families across generations. Each type carried different obligations and different permanence. The blood kinship of Siol Alpin could never be revoked. The battle brotherhood of Kilsyth endured as long as the men who fought together lived. The marriage alliance with the Campbells of Glenlyon wove the two families into the same bloodline for all generations that followed.
What follows is the full record of MacNab alliances: who they were, how the bond was formed, what was done together, and where things stand today.
The Deepest Bond
The Seed of Alpin — Ancient Royal Blood Kinship
The deepest of all MacNab bonds is not an alliance at all in the conventional sense. It is blood. Siol Alpin, the Seed of Alpin, is the name given to the confederation of clans that all trace their descent from Alpín mac Echdach, who died around 837 AD, the father of Kenneth MacAlpin, first King of the Scots and Picts. Every clan within the Siol Alpin grouping is, by descent and by the reckoning of Highland genealogical tradition, kin to the MacNabs.
The clan genealogies of all Siol Alpin members trace through the Cenél Loairn, a senior division of the Dál Riata kingdom of Argyll and northeast Ireland. This is the same royal line that the MacNab progenitor, the Abbot of Glendochart, carried when he established the hereditary abbacy in the 9th century. The MacNabs and their Siol Alpin kin are, in the most literal genealogical sense, branches of the same ancient tree.
The practical meaning of Siol Alpin kinship in the Highland world was significant. Member clans could not be compelled to fight one another in the same way as unrelated clans. The bond was recognized in Scottish law as a form of blood relationship. When external pressures threatened the grouping, the clans could draw on a common identity rooted in the deepest claim of all: shared descent from the man whose son made Scotland.
The MacGregors, the most turbulent of the Siol Alpin clans, held the motto S Rioghal Mo Dhream: My race is royal. Every MacNab shares that claim.
Glen Dochart — the MacNab heartland within the broader Siol Alpin world
Clan MacNab
Mac an Aba. The Abbots of Glendochart. Perthshire. The founding line whose name carries the abbacy that gave Siol Alpin its spiritual heart in this part of Scotland.
Clan MacGregor
S Rioghal Mo Dhream. My race is royal. Argyll and Perthshire. The most famous and most persecuted of the Siol Alpin clans, whose very name was proscribed by law between 1603 and 1774.
Clan Grant
Stand Fast, Craigellachie. Strathspey and Inverness-shire. One of the largest Highland clans, whose lands in the north carried the same ancient Dál Riatan royal blood as the MacNabs in the south.
Clan MacKinnon
Courage. The Isle of Skye and Mull. An island clan of the western seaboard sharing the same Cenél Loairn ancestry. Their chiefs held the hereditary keepership of Dunakin Castle on Skye.
Clan MacQuarrie
The Isle of Ulva and Mull. One of the smaller Siol Alpin clans, whose ancient seat on the island of Ulva off the western coast of Mull connected the kinship group to the original Dál Riatan seaways.
Clan MacAulay
Dumbartonshire and the western Highlands. The MacAulays of the Loch Lomond area, whose descent from the Siol Alpin line connected them to the same ancient royal inheritance as the MacNabs of Perthshire.
Alliance in Defeat
Lords of Lorne — Allied 1306 — The Comyn Connection
The alliance with Clan MacDougall was forged not in celebration but in the most consequential political miscalculation in MacNab history. It was an alliance of loyalty and kinship that cost the clan its lands, its charters, and two decades of political existence. And yet it was the right alliance for the time and the circumstances that shaped it.
The MacDougalls were, in the early 14th century, one of the most powerful clans in Scotland. As Lords of Lorne, they controlled a vast swathe of Argyll from their stronghold at Dunstaffnage Castle, near present-day Oban. They were connected to the Comyn family through marriage, and the Comyns were the most powerful noble family in Scotland, the principal rivals to Robert the Bruce for the Scottish crown.
The MacNab connection ran through Angus MacNab, the clan chief of that era, who was the brother-in-law of John Comyn of Badenoch, called the Red Comyn, the head of the Comyn family and the most powerful man in Scotland. The MacNabs and the MacDougalls were allied through the same political and familial network, both committed to the Comyn cause.
On 10 February 1306, Robert the Bruce killed John Comyn in the Church of the Greyfriars in Dumfries. It was a political murder at a sacred site. Within weeks Bruce had seized the crown. The MacNab and MacDougall response was immediate: they took the field against Bruce.
In August 1306, near Tyndrum at the western edge of MacNab territory, the combined MacDougall and allied forces ambushed Bruce’s retreating army at the Battle of Dalrigh. Bruce was wounded. His force was scattered. The MacDougalls reportedly captured the brooch from Bruce’s cloak in the rout, known ever since as the Brooch of Lorne, now one of the most celebrated pieces of Scottish heraldic jewellery in existence. The MacNabs and MacDougalls won that battle.
They lost the war. By 1314 Bruce was the unquestioned King of Scotland. The MacNab lands were stripped. Their charters were destroyed. The MacDougalls were driven from Lorne and their estates forfeited. Both clans paid the full price of backing the losing faction.
Coat of Arms — Clan MacDougall — House of MacDougall
The MacDougall Alliance — Key Facts
Historical alliance — 13th to 14th century
Brothers in Arms
Clan Donnachaidh — Battle of Kilsyth 1645 — Perthshire Neighbours
Of all the MacNab alliances, the bond with Clan Robertson is perhaps the most natural. These were neighbouring clans of Perthshire, both deeply rooted in the Highland landscape of the county, both descended from ancient lines, and both committed with equal fervour to the Royalist cause under James Graham, 1st Marquess of Montrose, in the civil wars of the 1640s.
Clan Robertson is known in Gaelic as Clann Donnchaidh, the Clan of Duncan, named after Donnchaidh Reamhar (Fat Duncan), the chief who led the clan at Bannockburn in 1314 on the side of Robert the Bruce. The Robertsons hold the distinction of having received the first recorded royal charter granted to any Scottish clan, issued in 1451 by King James II, confirming their ancient rights in Atholl and Struan in central Perthshire. Their chiefly seat was at Struan, a few miles north of the MacNab lands at Killin.
The two clans fought side by side at the Battle of Kilsyth on 15 August 1645, one of Montrose’s most complete military victories. Montrose’s Highland army, composed of MacNabs, Robertsons, Ogilvys, MacDonalds, and others, destroyed the Covenanting government force under General William Baillie. The battle lasted barely an hour. The Covenanting army suffered catastrophic casualties. For a brief moment, Montrose controlled Scotland.
The Robertsons also participated in the capture of a particularly notorious figure: in 1437, a Robertson chief captured and delivered to justice Walter Stewart, who had led the assassination of King James I of Scotland. For this act, the Robertsons were granted the right to bear a man bound in fetters as their clan crest, which they carry to this day. It is the kind of detail that appeals to the MacNab temperament.
Arms of Robertson of Struan — Three silver wolf heads on red
Clan Robertson — Key Facts
Living clans — Perthshire neighbours to this day
The Royalist Brotherhood
Earls of Airlie — Battle of Kilsyth 1645 — Royalist Cause
The alliance with Clan Ogilvy was born at Kilsyth on the same day as the Robertson alliance, on the same field, under the same commander. The three clans, MacNab, Robertson, and Ogilvy, stood together under Montrose in August 1645 as the most complete expression of the Highland Royalist cause in the Civil Wars.
The Ogilvys were an Angus clan, their heartland in the glens south of the Grampians at Airlie Castle, about thirty miles east of MacNab territory. Their chief was the Earl of Airlie, and the family’s Royalist commitment was total and had already cost them dearly. In 1640, Archibald Campbell, 1st Marquess of Argyll led a force that burned Airlie Castle while the Earl was away from home. Lady Ogilvy refused to surrender the castle and was forced to watch it demolished. The event became one of the most celebrated episodes of Highland outrage in the conflict, immortalized in the folk ballad The Bonnie House of Airlie, which is still sung in Scotland today.
The destruction of Airlie was carried out by Clan Campbell, the Argyll Campbells, who were the political enemies of the Royalist coalition that included the MacNabs, Ogilvys, and Robertsons. When Montrose raised the Royalist standard in 1644, the Ogilvys answered immediately and in force. Their commitment to the king was personal, not merely political: Argyll had burned their home.
At Kilsyth, the MacNab and Ogilvy forces fought as part of the same Highland army. After Montrose’s subsequent defeat at Philiphaugh, both clans suffered the consequences of the failed Royalist campaign. The MacNab chief John MacNab was eventually captured and later fell at the Battle of Worcester in 1651, fighting for Charles II in the final Royalist engagement. The Ogilvys endured similar losses. The alliance was one of shared sacrifice and shared principle.
Coat of Arms — Earldom of Airlie — Clan Ogilvy — A Fin
Clan Ogilvy — Key Facts
“Argyll has ta’en Airlie / And broken it down / But the brave House of Airlie / Shall never fall down.”
The Bonnie House of Airlie — traditional Scottish ballad commemorating the burning of the Ogilvy seat by Argyll’s forces, 1640Living clan — Airlie Castle still stands in Angus today
The Marriage Alliance
Marriage — Mid-17th Century — Blood Bound Across the Divide
The most intimate of all MacNab alliances was forged not in battle but in marriage. The bond between the MacNabs and the Campbells of Glenlyon is one of blood, woven directly into the MacNab chiefly line itself.
Glenlyon is a long, winding glen in Perthshire running east to west from the village of Fortingall toward Killin, approximately twelve miles from the MacNab heartland at the western end of Loch Tay. The Campbells of Glenlyon were a distinct and relatively minor branch of the great Campbell clan, quite separate in character and political positioning from the powerful Argyll Campbells who had burned Airlie Castle and opposed the MacNab Royalist allies.
Smooth John MacNab, the hero of the Night of Twelve Sons in 1612, took a daughter of Campbell of Glenlyon as his wife. Their son Alexander MacNab, born around 1647, became the 9th Laird. Alexander was therefore half MacNab and half Campbell of Glenlyon, a man who carried both bloodlines into the subsequent generations of the clan. Through Alexander, the Campbell of Glenlyon blood entered the MacNab chiefly succession and was carried forward from that point.
It is worth noting the complexity of this alliance given the broader politics of the era. The Argyll Campbells, the main branch of Clan Campbell, were the direct political enemies of the MacNab Royalist allies. Argyll had burned the Ogilvy seat and opposed Montrose. Smooth John himself fought against Argyll’s faction at Kilsyth in 1645. Yet the Campbells of Glenlyon were a different and geographically distinct branch, with their own relationships and their own standing in Perthshire. The marriage alliance was with this specific family, not with the Argyll power.
The Campbell of Glenlyon name carries a darker historical note: Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon commanded the government troops who carried out the Massacre of Glencoe on 13 February 1692, in which 38 members of Clan MacDonald of Glencoe were killed by soldiers billeted in their homes. Captain Campbell acted under government orders. His name became synonymous with the event in Highland memory. He was a great-nephew of the man whose daughter had married into the MacNab line. This historical connection is part of the record.
Coat of Arms — Duke of Argyll — Clan Campbell — Ne Obliviscaris
The Glenlyon Alliance — Key Facts
Historical blood alliance — mid-17th century
Broader Kinship
Marriage Alliances — The Larger Highland Network
The MacNab connection to Clan Donald, the great clan of the western seaboard and the Islands whose chiefs bore the ancient title Lord of the Isles, is documented in clan genealogical records as a series of marriage alliances across the medieval and early modern period. The specific details of individual marriages are less fully documented than the battle alliances with Robertson and Ogilvy or the specific Glenlyon marriage, but the connection is recognized in MacNab clan tradition.
Clan Donald was, at the height of its power under the Lords of the Isles in the 14th and 15th centuries, the largest and most powerful clan in Scotland. The MacDonald Lordship of the Isles controlled Argyll, the Hebrides, and significant portions of the western mainland. Their political position in the Highland world made them natural partners in the network of alliances that surrounded the MacNab lands in Perthshire.
The MacNab and MacDonald political alignments were broadly compatible. Both clans were part of the old Highland world that opposed the centralizing power of successive Scottish monarchs. Both were connected through the broader web of Gaelic kinship that bound the Highland clans of western and central Scotland. The shared anti-Bruce alignment of 1306 placed both clans on the same side of the most significant political fault line of medieval Scotland, and the subsequent centuries of Highland political life continued to align their broader interests.
Clan Donald remains one of the largest and most widely spread of all Scottish clans, with members across Scotland, Ireland, Canada, the United States, Australia, and beyond. Their motto, Buaidh no Bàs (Victory or Death), is perhaps the most Highland of all clan mottos, expressing the same absolute commitment to honour that governed the MacNab character through the centuries of their shared history.
Coat of Arms — Clan MacDonald of MacDonald
Living clan — one of Scotland’s largest and most widespread
The Alliance in Sum
The MacNab alliances tell a coherent story. Ancient royal blood connected the clan to the Siol Alpin kinship network reaching back to the founding of Scotland. Political and military loyalty to the House of Stuart brought the MacNabs into battle brotherhood with the Robertsons and Ogilvys, Perthshire neighbours who shared the same landscape and the same values. Marriage wove the Campbell of Glenlyon line into the MacNab chiefly succession, binding two geographically close families into the same bloodline. And the broader MacDonald network placed the MacNabs within the great western Highland political world that had shaped Scotland since the Dál Riatan kingdom.
Each alliance carried its cost as well as its benefit. The MacDougall alliance ended in the loss of the clan lands. The Royalist alliance cost the MacNab chief his life at Worcester. The Glenlyon marriage connected the clan to a family whose most famous descendant would be associated with the worst act of Highland treachery in history. These were the stakes of alliance in the Highland world. The bonds were real. The consequences were real.
The name MacNab, Macnab, McNab, McNabb, MacNabb endured through all of it.