One redeeming feature

One redeeming feature of the expedition was that I saw Gloucester Cathedral for the first time. It's not huge, but beautifully proportionated, built of mellow Cotswold stone, with a remarkable square Perpendicular tower that has delicate fretted stonework running round the top like a balustrade. The cloisters are exquisite - among the finest in the country my Visitor's Guide claimed, and with justification, I should say. Edward II is buried here. All I know about him is from Marlowe's play, which may not be reliable, but makes him seem like a real person who once lived and breathed, not just a name in a history book. It seemed extraordinary to stand beside the remains of somebody who lived seven hundred years ago, and know who he was. If Ralph Messenger is right, the atoms of his dust are indestructible. But it is my mind that preserves his identity, and makes a connection between us.
As I trod the worn paving of the ancient aisles, pausing at intervals to admire fine brasses and carved statuary, another literary association came to mind. In the Golden Bowl Charlotte and the Prince begin their adulterous affair at Gloucester, delaying their return to London from a houseparty on the pretext of viewing the cathedral- and there's a reference to the tomb of Edward II, I'm sure. Did they really visit,it, to give circumstantial plausibility to their story when they returned to their respective spouses, or did they spend every stolen moment in their room at in the inn selected by the resourceful Charlotte? I don't have the novel to hand to check . James probably doesn't say, anyway.
I had lunch afterwards at the Cosy Pew Café, just round the corner from the Cathedral, poring over every word in the guide because I had brought nothing else with me to read. I wondered despondently if this was the spinsterish future that awaits me: collecting cathedrals and reading at the table in twee restaurants.