Governments have always had to strike a balance between actions that are unpopular but thought to be necessary, and laws and policies that win them support from the public. In the UK, the new prime minister Andy Burnham has set out to grab the news agenda with a string of genuinely popular announcements.

Back in the middle ages, unpopular governments did not need to worry about the ballot box – but they did often face popular uprisings. The most famous of these was the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt in England – a serious of riots across the country against the corruption of government and local landlords. This is the most studied revolt of the middle ages, but there were many other uprisings across medieval Europe.

But one country where these uprisings were uncommon was Scotland. In my book, Protest, Resistance and Popular Politics in Late Medieval Scotland, I investigated why this might have been the case. One reason was the relative alertness of the Scottish state when it came to passing laws that eased the consequences of war, famine and plague for the people.

This is not to say that Scotland was anything close to a democracy, nor that Scottish kings pursued only those policies that would make them popular.

In the 15th century for example, both football and golf were banned in Scotland to........

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