Harry and Meghan Hold Hands on Cotswolds Pub Date as Britain’s “Private Citizens” Send the Media Into Overdrive

The Sun is covering Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex’s pub lunch like a teenager who just spotted her favourite boy band having tea down the road. The working royals rarely seem to make the paper blush this hard.

And what was this breathless “exclusive” actually about? Harry and Meghan went to the pub, held hands, ate lunch and left. That was apparently enough for The Sun to turn an ordinary meal into a front-page royal event.

Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex held hands as they walked to The Falkland Arms in Great Tew, Oxfordshire, where Harry reportedly ordered a chicken, ham and leek pie while Meghan chose gluten-free fish and chips. The paper even supplied the prices: £17.95 for Harry’s meal and £18.25 for Meghan’s.  

Apparently, the Palace can call Harry and Meghan “akin to private citizens” when discussing their royal status, but The Sun still treats a married couple having lunch as a front-page “going public” event.

The Sun’s Royal Editor Matt Wilkinson co-wrote the story, which stretches this completely ordinary outing into a full royal exclusive. We learn what they wore, what they ate, how much it cost, the history of the pub, which celebrities live nearby and, crucially, that Harry “glanced at the menu board.” Pulitzer committees, take note.  

For Such “Boring” People, The Sun Is Very Interested

There is something almost comical about sections of the British royal press constantly describing Harry and Meghan as irrelevant, tedious or finished while dedicating this level of attention to their lunch.

Wilkinson hosts The Sun’s Royal Exclusive show and has covered the Royal Family for the paper since 2020. His own biography highlights scoops about Queen Elizabeth’s hospitalisation, Sarah Ferguson’s cancer diagnoses and Harry’s relationship with his father.

That is a remarkable amount of energy for parts of the press to spend on people they routinely describe as irrelevant, while the Palace now formally describes them as “akin to private citizens.”

The Sun also ran several of its main Harry and Meghan photos with the credit simply listed as “NO CREDIT.” Other pictures in the same piece, including shots of the pub and an older photo of Meghan there, are credited to Chris Eades. So who took the actual “exclusive” pictures? The Sun does not say.

That is interesting enough on its own, especially because some of the shots appear to have been taken from inside or right beside a car.

This Is Exactly Why the Security Argument Will Not Go Away

The timing makes the whole thing even stranger. Only days ago, police began investigating two men who allegedly spent hours monitoring the area around Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet’s school. ITV linked the rental van from the incident to an international photographer, while the Sussexes’ spokesperson referred to “certain European paparazzi.”

Now The Sun has exclusive photographs tracking Harry and Meghan to a quiet pub lunch. And somehow the same media ecosystem still manages to treat Harry’s concerns about surveillance and security as evidence of paranoia. The Sun itself recently ran criticism from a former royal protection officer accusing them of exaggerating the threat.

Parts of the press cannot spend years mocking Harry’s demands for protection and then treat photographers locating him during an ordinary afternoon out as a triumph.

The Sun describes the couple as having “gone public,” but they did not announce an appearance or stage an event. They went to lunch. That is the actual story here: two people ate pub food, held hands and went home. The extraordinary part is not what Harry and Meghan did. It is how much of the British media still considers following them around while they do it a front-page event.