“Grudge no expense - yield to no opposition - forget fatigue - till, by the strength of prayer and sacrifice, the spirit of love shall have overcome.”-Maria W. Chapman. Grudge between two people or peoples can create a massive impact on their relationships. One of the bloodless ways to defeat it, is to love. The two families, Montagues and Capulets, showed this is possible. A long grudge caused Romeo and Juliet to love each other in secret. Eventually, it led them to death. The Prince, Friar Laurence and Lord Capulet contribute to the death of the two young lovers. 

Prince Escalus is definitely to blame for the lives of Romeo and Juliet. He repeated to the two families that he was going to punish them severely if they brawled again, except he never lived up to his word. The Prince actually admits that the deaths of Romeo and Juliet were his fault when he says, “Where be these enemies?- Capulet, Montague, see what scourge is laid upon your hate, that heaven finds means to kill your joys with love, and I, for winking at your discords too, Have lost a brace of kinsmen. All are punished” (V,III,301-305). When the Prince says 'all are punished' he means that the blame is on the Montagues, Capulets and himself. The Prince did not handle the families conflicts with great authority either. Since all of the Prince's punishments were minor, the families could keep fighting without worrying about the outcome. Verona was and still is a big city which contains thousands of people, and if the Prince could not keep only two families restrained he should not be Prince.

Friar Laurence is a major culprit of the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. He created a gargantuan plan that he improvised in a matter of seconds and expected every step to work out. Here is just a few steps that Friar Laurence’s plan contains, “Hold, then. Go home; be merry; give consent to marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow. Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone; Let not the Nurse lie with thee in thy chamber” (IV,I,91-94). Friar Laurence did not exactly put all of his thought into this plan because first of all, it didn’t work and second, he thought of this immense plan from the top of his head. If he really wanted the plan to work, he should have delivered the letter to Romeo by himself so then he would have known that Romeo received it.