While Gray was at meat, the unfortunate prisoner was, by Douglas's command, led forth to the court-yard and beheaded.
"Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3)"
Walter Scott
The Hall door, where a sentry stands, is the same through which Lord Nithisdale escaped in female dress, the night before he was to have been beheaded, 1716. Some parts of the house are of great antiquity, among them the rooms in the Bell Tower, those on the upper storey which open on the leads and the rampart known as The Prisoners' Walk, and the Council Room, a handsome apartment containing a curious monument of the Gunpowder Plot.
"Authorised Guide to the Tower of London"
W. J. Loftie
Here it is, in the memorable words of Stow, writing in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, that there lie before the high altar, "two dukes between two queens, to wit, the Duke of Somerset and the Duke of Northumberland, between Queen Anne and Queen Katharine, all four beheaded."
"Authorised Guide to the Tower of London"
W. J. Loftie