Protesters arrested after smearing custard and crumbles on briefcase containing King Charles’ crown jewels
Four protesters were arrested on Saturday after splashing food on a priceless diamond-encrusted crown at the Tower of London.
The Crown Jewels exhibition 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 state imperial crown worn by King Charles III at his coronation in 2023 and during his opening speech to Parliament in 2024.
The heavy crown, containing 2,868 diamonds, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, four rubies and 269 pearls, was made 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, shows two protesters attacking the affair while other visitors step back in shock. After an employee intervened and radioed for help, the two protesters unfurled a sign reading: “Democracy has collapsed. Tax the rich. »
Take back power
The Metropolitan Police said the protesters were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. The Tower of London was then closed on Saturday.
The group, which is campaigning for a permanent citizens’ assembly and wants to tax extreme wealth, said two of its members had thrown food and two others had also been arrested and taken to a “custard”. They identified two of the members as Miriam Cranch, 21, and Zahra Ali, 19.
“Our country is collapsing before our eyes,” Ali, a student from London, said in a statement shared by the group. “We have homeless people dying on the very streets that King Charles took to the coronation, while there are more empty houses than homeless people in this country.”
Many valuable treasures and works of art have been targeted in an attempt to draw attention to political causes. Climate activists have defamed the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spainwith red and black paint. The action aimed to express indignation towards forest fires in summer which ravaged the country, according to the activist group.
In 2024, two paintings from the “Sunflowers” series by Vincent van Gogh were splashed with soup launched by protesters from the environmental group Just Stop Oil at the National Gallery in London. The artworks were not damaged due to the protective glass coverings. Similar pieces, also by van Gogh, have been targeted in the same way in 2022.
An environmental activist was arrested at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris after tying a sign of protest to a painting by Claude Monet. Another painting by Monet had discarded mashed potatoes on it during its exhibition in Germany in 2022.
