SOURCE: Lyall, R. J. “Tradition and Innovation in Alexander Barclay's Towre of Vertue and Honoure.” Review of English Studies 23, no. 89 (February 1972): 1-18.

In this essay, Lyall asserts that little critical attention has been given to the poem The Towre of Vertue and Honoure and contends that the poem is a representation of Barclay's originality and was influential in the development of the English elegy.

Set in the fourth of his Eclogues, The Towre of Vertue and Honoure (1513-14) is unique among the works of Alexander Barclay. It represents his only sustained attempt at formal, courtly allegory, if we agree with the consensus of modern critical opinion and reject the ascription to him of ‘The Castell of Laboure’.¹ The Towre is an occasional poem, concerned with the death in battle of Sir Edward Howard, the son of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, who was soon to become Barclay's patron...