1745 proved to be a troublesome year for both Handel and England. In Handel’s case there was increasing opposition from fans of opera to his oratorios, a growing lack of interest amongst his regular followers and even an organized boycott by the ladies of high society, led by Lady Margaret Cecil Brown. Audiences for his regular London season thus proved thin. An ambitious run of twenty-four planned oratorio concerts (including first performances of Hercules and Belshazzar) attracted such small crowds that the composer called a halt after sixteen concerts. If he had not done so he might have risked bankruptcy. Handel must have been depressed, for when his operas had finally lost their audiences he had been able to develop a new public appeal by putting on oratorios. Now this form too seemed doomed. By the summer his health was suffering and he retired to the country to recuperate.