Tower of strength

This familiar metaphor for physical and/or moral fortitude was coined in 1591 by Shakespeare in Richard III, Act V, Scene III, “the king’s name is a tower of strength” although the word tower had been used figuratively to describe strong or strong-minded people since the 14th century. Tennyson borrowed Shakespeare’s metaphor in 1852 when he described the late Duke of Wellington, “O fallen at length, that tower of strength” in Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington.