The friar who fails to deliver Juliet’s letter in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is Friar John.
Friar John is entrusted with carrying Friar Laurence’s message to Romeo in Mantua. The letter explains that Juliet is not truly dead and that Romeo should return to Verona so they can reunite after her feigned death.
The plan fails because Friar John is prevented from leaving the house where he has been visiting a sick person. Officials suspect the house may have been exposed to plague and quarantine him. He therefore cannot deliver the message, and Friar Laurence does not learn that Romeo has never received it.
Romeo hears only that Juliet has died. He buys poison and returns to Verona, where he finds Count Paris at Juliet’s tomb. The missed letter is one of the play’s crucial accidents. Friar John is sometimes confused with Friar Laurence, but Laurence is the priest who secretly marries the couple and devises the sleeping-potion plan.