Troops from the Royal Dragoon Guards will soon be able to march through York with colours flying, swords drawn, bayonets fixed, drums beating, bugles sounding and bands playing. This right is only accorded to those possessing the freedom of entry to the city. Councillors agreed to grant the regiment that freedom at a meeting last week.

The honour, which could now be presented in a special ceremony on April 24, is the latest addition to the Royal Dragoon Guards impressive list of achievements.

To trace the history of the regiment, whose headquarters and museum now resides on Tower Street in York, we have to go back to the reign of James II. He was the unpopular Catholic king ruling over a predominantly Protestant nation. In 1685, William of Orange arrived in England from Holland with the object of claiming the English throne.

The king responded by increasing his forces. Both the 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards were formed from Troops of Horse by James to fight off William. In the event, they joined the rest of his Army in refusing to support him and the king fled to France, abandoning his throne to William of Orange.

When James tried to regain his throne in Ireland, Protestants in the town of Enniskillen raised three regiments, among them the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons. In 1690 they fought alongside the 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards in the Battle of the Boyne. James was again defeated.

The 7th Dragoon Guards were formed in 1688 by Lord Devonshire. After a series of amalgamations over the next three centuries, the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th Dragoon Guards merged to form The Royal Dragoon Guards.

Whether on horseback or in armoured tanks, the Dragoons have fought with honour in some of the most famous battles in British history.

In 1815, the Inniskillings took a leading role in the Battle of Waterloo. Forming part of the Union Brigade, commanded by Major General Sir William Ponsonby, the regiment charged the French forces.

"The spectacle was grand and the result glorious to the British," is how the regimental museum's account describes the victory.

On display there is a letter from one H Hamilton, dated June 23, 1815. He described Waterloo, and the heroic efforts of his brother-in-law, Captain Browne, who commanded the centre squadron.

"The Duke of Wellington told me it was a battle of giants and not of men," he wrote. "My brother-in-law's regiment, the Inniskillings, were in the very thick of it. Man was fighting against man. He had got a wound, with a ball which was in his foot, and three wounds from Lancers in other parts when his horse going at quick pace was shot. This of course brought Brown to the ground where he staggered on foot and defended himself the best way he could."

The Inniskillings were so praised by Wellington that a statue of an Inniskilling Dragoon was erected on the Wellington Memorial in Hyde Park, London.

In 1854 the 4th, 5th and the 6th Dragoon Guards, who had last fought together at the Boyne, rode together again in the charge of the Heavy Brigade at Balaclava. Eight hundred men utterly routed 3,500 of the Tsar's finest cavalry, with minimal loss to themselves. So demoralised were the Russian horseman that they did not dare to follow up the subsequent disaster to the Light Brigade later the same day.

In the First World War, the Dragoons were known as the "first and last", having been involved at the very start and end of that terrible conflict.

C Squadron of the 4th Dragoons, on reconnaissance in France, came across the enemy on August 22, 1914. Corporal Thomas fired the first shot of the war, and Captain Hornby was the first officer to draw blood with his sword.

Then, as Armistice approached, the 7th Dragoon Guards took the Bridge at Lessines - vital for communication links - at 10.40am on November 11, 1918.

Furthermore the 4th Dragoon Guards was the first regiment of the British Army of Occupation to arrive in defeated Germany.

By the end of the 1930s, the Army stopped using horses. The Royal Dragoon Guards' final mounted parade took place in Edinburgh in August 1938.

A year after mechanisation, war broke out again. The Dragoons were heavily involved in the D Day landing, using a secret weapon - floating Sherman tanks.

Also in the war, Dragoon Guard Sergeant 'Spit' Harris became a hero by knocking out five enemy Panther tanks in five shots from his own Sherman.

Over the years, troops from the Dragoon Guards have been stationed at the former Cavalry Barracks in York. But it was only in 1960 that the 4th/7th Dragoons established their headquarters in Yorkshire, at Catterick.

The regiment HQ was moved to York in 1986. And now The Royal Dragoon Guards is delighted to have been awarded the freedom of entry to the city.

The Regimental Museum on Tower Street is open 9am-4.30pm Monday to Saturday, admission £2 adults, £1 children and pensioners

The Evening Press is preparing a series of supplements telling the story of the century. If you have an old photograph that might be suitable for these publications, taken any time from 1900 on, please send it to Chris Titley, Evening Press, 76-86 Walmgate, York YO1 9YN, along with some details about the picture and your daytime telephone number. All pictures will be returned.

PICTURE: A 4th Dragoon guardsman in all his finery from 1829.