Revealing letters written by Lady Lucan have been found hidden under floorboards at her former home.
The correspondence was typed in the years following her husband’s notorious mystery disappearance.
One addressed to Lady Lucan’s solicitor describes the complete isolation she suffered after Lord Lucan fled following the murder of their children’s nanny.
She wrote: “I am shunned by my previous acquaintances.
“I feel wary of approaching my old school for fear of the reaction of the headmistress and I feel quite unable to re-enter society.”
The longest letter indicates Lady Lucan wanted to sue American magazine The New Review for libel.
She claimed a profile piece made her out to be “a bitch” and “neurotic woman”, who had driven her husband mad.
Writing in July 1976, she said: “I submit that I am a perfectly normal person whose marriage went wrong mainly because of financial problems.
“The custody proceedings over my children brought out the worst in my husband... he became paranoid.”
Lord Lucan had tried to prove his wife had mental problems, but lost the case and accumulated large debts.
And, in another letter, Lady Lucan wrote: “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.”
Lord Lucan disappeared in November, 1974, aged 39.
Detectives believe the aristocrat and professional gambler had intended to murder his wife, but bludgeoned nanny Sandra Rivett, 29, to death instead.
Lady Lucan, born Veronica Duncan, was also injured in the attack at the family home in Belgravia, London, which was sold after she died last year, aged 80.
