Women are allowed to take part in jousting at English Heritage events for the first time this year, as they abandon strict historical accuracy for gender equality.

The organisation has announced it will invite two leading female jousters to take part in four displays this summer, the first time they have been allowed to participate since the event started in the late 1990s.

Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire, where Robert Dudley famously wooed Tudor England's most powerful woman, Queen Elizabeth I, will be the first of four castles to see a woman take on men in the tilting yard, the charity said.