LONDON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Four protesters were arrested Saturday after splattering food on the display case of a priceless diamond-encrusted crown at the Tower of London.<\/p>\n
The Crown Jewels display was temporarily closed after members of a group called Take Back Power smeared apple crumble and poured yellow custard \u2014 two staples on British dessert menus \u2014 on the case containing the Imperial State Crown. King Charles III wore the crown as he left his coronation ceremony in 2023 and during his speech to open Parliament in 2024.<\/p>\n
The hefty crown, containing 2,868 diamonds, 17 sapphires, 11 emeralds, four rubies and 269 pearls, was crafted for the coronation of Charles\u2019 grandfather, George VI, in 1937. <\/p>\n
Police said the protesters were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. The jewels, a popular tourist attraction, were unharmed, Historic Royal Palaces said.<\/p>\n
Take Back Power, a civil disobedience group that advocates for a permanent citizens\u2019 assembly and wants to tax extreme wealth, said in a statement that two of its members had thrown the food and two others were also arrested and taken into \u201ccustard-y.\u201d <\/p>\n
The stunt is one of many that have targeted prized treasures and artworks to draw attention to political causes. Anti-fossil-fuel protesters were imprisoned last year for tossing a can of tomato soup on glass protecting Van Gogh\u2019s \u201cSunflowers\u201d at London\u2019s National Gallery.<\/p>\n
Video of the act at the Tower of London \u2014 once a royal palace also known as the prison where Anne Boleyn, Thomas More and others were executed \u2014 showed two protesters attacking the case as other visitors stepped back in shock. <\/p>\n
After an employee intervened and radioed for help, the two demonstrators unfurled a sign saying, \u201cDemocracy has crumbled. Tax the rich.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Four protesters were arrested Saturday after splattering food on the display case of a priceless diamond-encrusted crown at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617161,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[192225,192222,748,7730,192223,192221,184400,192220,393,1203,15454,4884,257,53389,6900,119755,192224,192219,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-617160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-anne-boleyn","9":"tag-back-power","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-charles","12":"tag-coronation-ceremony","13":"tag-crown-jewels-case","14":"tag-custard","15":"tag-display-case","16":"tag-england","17":"tag-food","18":"tag-glass","19":"tag-great-britain","20":"tag-london","21":"tag-member","22":"tag-other","23":"tag-protester","24":"tag-tomato-soup","25":"tag-tower","26":"tag-uk","27":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115676157358610576","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}