2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays)
cavalry regiment in the British Army
The 2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays) was a cavalry regiment of the British Army. It was first raised in 1685 by Henry Mordaunt, 2nd Earl of Peterborough as the Earl of Peterborough's Regiment of Horse by merging four existing cavalry troops. Renamed several times, the regiment was designated the Queen's Regiment of Dragoon Guards in 1746 as it evolved into a dragoon unit.
In 1767 the regiment was renamed the "2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays)" to reflect the custom of its officers and soldiers to ride only bay horses. The regiment served as horse cavalry until 1937, when it was mechanised with light tanks. The regiment became part of the Royal Armoured Corps in 1939. After service in the First and Second World Wars, the regiment was amalgamated with the 1st King's Dragoon Guards in 1959 to form the 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards.
History
Early history
The regiment was raised in 1685 as the Earl of Peterborough's Regiment of Horse when James II expanded his army after the Monmouth Rebellion. Peterborough was a Catholic who remained loyal to James and was replaced by Edward Villiers on 31 December 1688.
During the Nine Years' War, it served as Villiers Regiment in Ireland between 1689 and 1691, fighting in the battles of the Boyne and Aughrim.
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This entry incorporates text from “2nd Dragoon Guards (Queen's Bays)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.