'I'm portrayed as a b****… I'm a perfectly normal person whose marriage went wrong': Lady Lucan reveals her anguish in letters found hidden in her home after she died
- The documents were stumbled upon by builders who were working on the west London guesthouse
- She revealed her anger after her husband tried to paint her as a debt-laden lunatic
- Lady Lucan - born Veronica Dunn and who died last year - also wrote about how her life spiralled into isolation
Lady Lucan's turbulent marriage to the Lord who notoriously vanished has been revealed in a string of letters stashed under the dining room floorboards of her old house.
In 1973, 11 years after they wed, John Bingham, the seventh Earl of Lucan, beat their children's nanny to death before attacking his wife and disappearing in one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the 20th Century.
But the couple's relationship had soured years before and at the time of his flight they were in the grips of an ugly custody battle.
Now, resurfaced letters from Lady Lucan to her solicitor detail her troubled marriage and her anguish at the negative press she was receiving.
Lady Lucan's turbulent marriage to the Lord who notoriously vanished has been revealed in a string of letters stashed under the dining room floorboards of her old house
In one exchange, she writes that the legal proceedings are 'bringing out the worst in my husband' who she said has been driven 'paranoid' with envy, according to the Times.
She also revealed her anger after her husband tried to paint her as a debt-laden lunatic to win custody of their children George, Camilla and Frances.
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The letter read: 'He wrongly assumed I was suffering from a medical problem, but if I was suffering from anything at all it was the normal fears which any mother would feel if she could see no security for her children.'
But the longest letter to her law firm was a furious instruction to sue the New Review magazine for libel for a piece where they portrayed her as a 'b****' whose 'neurotic' behaviour had taken a toll on her husband.
Lady Lucan - born Veronica Dunn and who died last year - also wrote about how her life spiralled into isolation as she was palmed off by her former friends after she split from Lord Lucan
In a 10-page rebuke, she wrote: 'I submit that I am a perfectly normal person whose marriage went wrong mainly because of financial problems.'
The documents were stumbled upon by builders who were working on the west London guesthouse which has been placed on the market.
Lady Lucan - born Veronica Dunn and who died last year - also wrote about how her life spiralled into isolation as she was palmed off by her former friends after she split from Lord Lucan.
The owner of the house, who is selling it, has reportedly not determined what to do with the letters.
How bludgeoned Lady Lucan was one of the last people to see Lord Lucan alive before he disappeared
Detectives believe Lord Lucan intended to murder his wife and killed the nanny by mistake
John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, vanished after the body of nanny Sandra Rivett was found at the family's London home on November 7, 1974.
Lady Lucan was bludgeoned when she ran downstairs to investigate, but managed to escape and raise the alarm.
Lord Lucan's blood-stained car was later found abandoned in Newhaven, East Sussex, but he was never successfully traced.
Lucan was never seen in public again, and his body was never found, leading to decades of fevered speculation about his whereabouts.
In 1975, an inquest jury declared him to have been Ms Rivett's killer.
Detectives believe the aristocrat - an abusive husband and heavy gambler nicknamed 'Lucky Lucan' - intended to murder his wife and killed the nanny by mistake.
His marriage to Lady Lucan had been described as 'grimly unhappy.'
The mystery of Lord Lucan's disappearance still intrigues Britain.
His marriage to Lady Lucan (pictured with their son George, three) had been described as 'grimly unhappy'
The High Court declared him dead for probate purposes in 1999, but there have been scores of reported sightings around the world, in countries including Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand.
In an ITV documentary last year, Lady Lucan said she believed Lord Lucan had jumped off a ferry shortly after the killing.
'I would say he got on the ferry and jumped off in the middle of the Channel in the way of the propellers so that his remains wouldn't be found,' she said, calling what she believed to be his final act 'brave.'
The couple had three children.
In 2016 a court issued a 'presumption of death' certificate for Lord Lucan, a ruling that cleared the way for the couple's son, George Bingham, to become the 8th Earl of Lucan.
