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Berowne, whose name suggests “baron” as well as “brown,” is the most charismatic of the King’s lords, and the one with the most distinguishable personality. He’s the only one of the lords to hold out on the restrictions required by the oath, and he only agrees to sign his name out of the necessity of the situation. However, he also slyly implies that necessity will cause all the lords to break their vows, in which case “necessity” will also excuse them from their inevitable perjury. Berowne’s prediction soon comes true when the lords instantly fall for the Princess’s ladies and begin composing love poetry for them. Berowne is the first to set his love down in ink, when he writes a letter to Rosaline. This letter is predictably misdirected and ends up exposing Berowne’s perjury at the very moment he attempts to claim higher ground by shaming his fellow lords for forswearing their oaths. Amusingly, it is Berowne’s flexibility of intelligence that allows him to turn things around for all the men when he claims that they were mistaken in committing themselves to scholarly retreat. The real truth they seek lies in romance, not books, which means they have a duty to woo their beloveds.
