Over the last few decades, there have been a number of studies of the meaning and politics of the pre-Modern royal welcome. As occasions for displays of civic or courtly power dynamics, the politics of royal and noble entries and the pageantry of royal progress have received valuable critical analysis. Regarding the Tudor and Stuart monarchs, David Bergeron's English Civic Pageantry remains a landmark study of the ‘evolution’ of the pageant's dramatic form. More recently, Alexander Samson has examined the welcome of Philip and Mary to London in 1554, looking in particular at the city's use of images of the royal couple during the event. While the numerous progresses, civic triumphs, and pageant performances of Queen Elizabeth's reign have been particularly well served by modern scholarship, the more recent studies of royal entries have mainly focused on entertainments in London.

Arising from the work of the Records of Early English Drama North-East project, this article considers a relatively neglected incident in the history of English royal visits: the welcome of James I to the North of England during his great progress and visit to Scotland, which lasted from March to September 1617. The early Stuart era is usually perceived as a period of decline of progress pageantry. Unlike his predecessor, James felt uneasy with the crowds and was notoriously impatient during public shows; he preferred instead to centre royal entertainment around his court, which witnessed the flourishing of the masque, the theatrical super-spectacles, which weighed heavy on the Crown's coffers. The reason for a relative neglect of James's progresses by theatre historians is mainly due to the fact that the entertainment offered to the king in the provinces was disappointingly meagre. Bergeron's remarks on James's entry into Edinburgh on 16 May 1617 will serve as an appropriate illustration:

However, unlike his predecessor, whose peregrinations were frequent but rarely strayed outside the home counties, James's Scottish origins necessitated progresses through the North, both on his way to London for coronation in 1603 and for his subsequent visit to Scotland a decade and a half later.