Veiled Vipers: A Prelude to The Queen That Never Was — Cinematic Tableaus of Feminine Political Inheritance

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Veiled Vipers is a series of large-scale cinematic tableaus that reclaims the political legacy behind Empress Matilda, England’s first uncrowned de jure queen, by visually resurrecting the women who shaped her. Rather than depicting Matilda herself, this project stages the lives of her mother Edith and her aunt Mary, presenting their strength, strategy, and symbolic power as the crucible in which Matilda’s political identity was formed. Through this prelude, Veiled Vipers reframes girlhood and sisterhood not as sentimental, but as ideological—the earliest architecture of resistance.

The work is presented as a gallery installation of framed photographs, each one constructed as a tableau vivant. These cinematic stills draw heavily on medieval and Pre-Raphaelite aesthetics, reimagined through a feminist lens. The visuals feature warm candlelight, reflective surfaces, and carefully curated textiles and symbols, evoking both the historical material world and its emotional undercurrents. In one frame, Edith stands cloaked in the woods, her face lit by a single taper. In another, Edith and Mary women are captured through the distortion of a mirror—braided, robed, observing each other and themselves. These images are not passive; they are visual arguments about inheritance, identity, and internalized power.

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Themes of girlhood, sisterhood, and feminine ritual appear throughout. Instead of generic portraits, these are intentional visual constructions of the cultural lineage that prepared Matilda to step into the contested, masculine world of medieval sovereignty. Her political instincts did not appear in a vacuum. They were taught, whispered, shown. Through Edith and Mary, we witness the groundwork of female authority: the learning of silence, the rehearsal of presence, the quiet rituals that become strategy.

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This generational power struggle is underscored by a compelling hypothesis developed through my research: both Edith and Mary named their daughters Matilda—one of whom would become the Empress, unrecognized but relentless in her claim, while the other, Matilda of Boulogne, rose as queen consort to Stephen, the Empress’s usurper. Drawing on historical correspondence, genealogical records, and narrative gaps, I propose that Mary may have intentionally groomed her daughter to oppose her cousin’s rightful claim, acting on a personal legacy of resentment and thwarted ambition.

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The project draws from sources like the Bayeux Tapestry, letters between Archbishop Anselm and Edith, and the chronicles of William of Malmesbury. Feminist scholars including Jane Schaberg, Elizabeth M. Tyler, and Marjorie Chibnall inform the project’s theoretical backbone, alongside visual influences from Cindy Sherman, Amanda Coogan, and Sofia Coppola.

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Originally envisioned as a script, the project evolved into this hybrid form—intentionally silent, slow, and meditative—to create space for reflection. By choosing tableau vivant, a historically mute medium, Veiled Vipers critiques the voicelessness imposed on women throughout history while also using stillness as a site of power. The absence of Matilda from the images becomes a presence in itself—she is not missing; she is becoming.

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This work is intended for an interdisciplinary audience of scholars, feminists, artists, and medievalists. It invites viewers to not only reconsider Empress Matilda, but to recognize the overlooked political agency of the women who raised her. Veiled Vipers is not a story of royal ascension—it’s the blueprint of it. A visual invocation of the quiet, cunning, generational labor that made Matilda possible.