Friar Lawrence exclaims, “I am the greatest, able to do the least, / Yet most suspected, as the time and place / Doth make against me, of this direful murder; / And here I stand, both to impeach and purge / Myself condemned and myself excused” (V.iii.223-227). In this quote, Friar Lawrence is making clear to the prince that he is aware that it looks as if the deaths of Romeo and Juliet are his doing, but that he is innocent in that standpoint. Friar Lawrence created one of the first conflicts by marrying Romeo and Juliet. It was their marriage that caused Juliet to be distressed about marrying Paris, and it was Friar Lawrence that came up with the plan for Juliet to use a sleeping potion to escape it. When the marriage was moved a day earlier, Friar Lawrence’s plan met with its fatal flaw, the undelivered letter to Romeo. The Friar’s failure to come up with a plan that didn’t depend on the delivery of a single letter lead to the deaths of our star-crossed lovers. In the end, it was the Friar’s mistakes that lead to their demise.
Altogether, the death of the two lovers was caused by several events; the feud of the families, John’s failure to deliver the letter to Romeo, and Friar Lawrence’s faulty plan. These events eventually lead to the sudden and horrible deaths of Romeo and Juliet leaving behind a message: beautiful things are brought to an end in the most jarring