1745 was not a good year for Handel. Two-thirds of the way through his musical season the finances were so bad that, had he continued, Handel could have found himself near to bankruptcy. Once again he had misjudged the requirements of his musical public: there was no longer the desire for the number of oratorio performances he had scheduled, and the result was that not only was the composer’s bank balance in a terrible state but so was his health. The sixty-one-year-old Handel left London and retired to the country to recuperate, first to the seat of the Earl of Gainsborough, Exton Hall in Leicestershire, and then to Scarborough.