Freedom of the City is an honour bestowed by some municipalities in Australia, Canada, France, Gibraltar, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Spain, the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe to esteemed members of its community and to organisations to be honoured, often for service to the community; the term applies to two separate honours, one civilian and one military. Key to the City is a similar award made in several other countries, and is more prevalent in the United States.

Freedom of the City is an ancient honour granted to martial organizations, allowing them the privilege to march into the city "with drums beating, colours flying, and bayonets fixed".

This honour dates back to the laws of ancient Rome that made it a capital offence for Roman legions to enter the city in formation or with weapons without permission. This was meant to ensure that ambitious generals did not mount a military coup against the Senate. (It was that law that Julius Caesar broke when crossing the Rubicon.) Similar laws were passed by cities throughout the Medieval era, also to protect civic security and rights, even against their own king's troops.

Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter, film director, and a director of Norwich City Football Club.

After a troubled childhood and adolescence, during which he was expelled from a number of schools and eventually spent three months in prison for credit card fraud, he was able to secure a place at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he studied English Literature.

He first came to public attention in the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also included Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and took the role of Jeeves (with Laurie playing Wooster) in Jeeves and Wooster.

As an actor, Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, was Melchett in the BBC television series Blackadder, starred as the title character Peter Kingdom in the ITV series Kingdom, has a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the Fox crime series Bones and appeared as rogue TV host Gordon Deitrich in the dystopian thriller V For Vendetta. He has also written and presented several documentary series including the 2008 television series Stephen Fry in America, which saw him travelling across all 50 US states. Since 2003 he has been the host of the quiz show QI.