Four protesters were arrested Saturday after splattering food on the case of a priceless diamond-encrusted crown at the Tower of London.
The Crown Jewels display was closed after members of a group called Take Back Power smeared apple crumble and poured yellow custard — two staples of British dessert menus — on the display case containing the Imperial State Crown worn by King Charles III during his coronation in 2023 and during his speech to open Parliament in 2024.
The hefty crown, containing 2,868 diamonds, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, four rubies and 269 pearls, was crafted for the coronation of Charles’ grandfather, George VI, in 1937.
Video of the stunt at the Tower of London, once a royal palace also known as the prison where Anne Boleyn, Thomas More and others were executed, showed two protesters attacking the case as other visitors stepped back in shock. After an employee intervened and radioed for help, the two demonstrators unfurled a sign saying, “Democracy has crumbled. Tax the rich.”
Take Back Power 
The Metropolitan Police said the protesters were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. The Tower of London was subsequently closed on Saturday.
The group, which advocates for a permanent citizens’ assembly and wants to tax extreme wealth, said two of its members had thrown the food and two others were also arrested and taken into “custard-y.” They identified two of the members as Miriam Cranch, 21, and Zahra Ali, 19.
“Our country is crumbling before our eyes,” said Ali, a student from London, in a statement shared by the group. “We have homeless people dying on the very streets that King Charles passed on his way to the coronation, whilst there are more empty homes than unhoused people in this country.”
Many prized treasures and artworks have been targeted in attempts to draw attention to political causes. Climate activists smeared the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain, with red and black paint. The action was meant to express outrage at summer forest fires that had ravaged the country, according to the activist group.
In 2024, two paintings from Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” series were splashed with soup thrown by protestors from the environmental group Just Stop Oil in London’s National Gallery. The artworks were not damaged because of protective glass coverings. Similar pieces, also by van Gogh, were similarly targeted in 2022.
An environmental activist was arrested at Paris’s Musee d’Orsay after attaching a protest sign to a painting by Claude Monet. Another Monet painting had mashed potatoes thrown on it while on display in Germany in 2022.