Royal family names such as Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles, the Duchess of Cambridge, Prince William, Prince Harry and his bride Meghan Markle are quiet well known. But there are royal family names that widely recognized. And yet their stories are worth telling.
Take Veronica Duncan, who married Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan Lucan. She took on one of the royal family names of Countess. However she’s better known as Lady Lucan.
It seems poor Lady Lucan didn’t live a charmed life as you would expect. The truth is she felt like an outcast. And she felt this way right up until her death at age 79 two years ago.
However, her friends … not even her family ever knew how she felt until ….
It wasn’t until after her death, when a bundle of her private letters were found under the dining room floorboards of her home in Belgravia, London that the world would know the heart ache and pain she lived with since 1974.
The Lucan family was a prestigious and aristocratic family ….
Royal Family Names: Lord & Lady Lucan
With some members serving in Parliament. Earlier decedent such as Sir John Bingham received the honor of knighthood during the reign of King Henry the first. Another served as part of Elizabeth 1’s military council.
In addition to their royal-family names status, they owned an extensive amount of real estate and land, roughly 63,000 acres.
Lady Lucan and Lord Lucan enjoyed a lavish lifestyle. He raced expensive powerboats and drove an Aston Martin, similar to the one used in James Bond films. It’s said that Lord Lucan was once considered for the role of James Bond because of his “charming good looks.”
But everything about their lives changed in November of 1974 when, Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan disappeared and has never been seen again.
It happened a few days after the couple’s nanny was murdered. Everyone suspected it was Lord Lucan who killed her. Even Lady Lucan thought it was her husband and she wrote about it in her letters.
But he didn’t kill the nanny because he was having a secret love affair … it was more like a case of mistaken identity. More about that in minute for now let me tell you more about Lady Lucan.
Married into the Royal Family
Veronica didn’t come from a “privileged” family. Her parents had no “royal” lineage.
So how did this “under-class” girl meet her true-life royal prince?
Well, it was her sister, Christina who brought Veronica into the ranks of high society.
See, Christina met and married William Shand Kydd, who was a stepbrother to Peter Shand Kydd who had married Princess Diana’s mother, Frances Ruth Rocheon. This was after her mother’s marriage to John Spencer ended. Talk about royal family names!
Christina brought her sister with her to certain functions. And that’s where Veronica and Richard met. The two were smitten with one another, and in October that same year they announced their engagement.
The two married shortly after and took up the royal family names of Lord and Lady Lucan.
A Royal Case of Mistaken Identity
In her letters, Lady Lucan claims that it was her husband who killed their nanny in a fatal case of mistaken identity. She writes that Lord Lucan wanted to kill her and not the nanny.
They were in the house and it was dark. Lord Lucan saw a figure walking down the hallway, which he assumed was Lady Lucan. He hit her on the head with a pipe.
However once he realized that it was the couple’s nanny, Sandra Rivett, he had no choice but to “finish her off.” The police were called to investigate the matter and determined the murderer had to be none other than Lord Lucan.
But why would he want to kill his wife?
A Nasty Divorce
Well, as it turns out the two were involved in a nasty divorce and were fighting over custody of the children. He didn’t want Lady Lucan to have the children and was determined to win the case at all costs.
In one letter, Lady Lucan describers how much effort her husband put into making her look mentally unstable. To the press, he would often describe his ex-wife as “neurotic” and “mean spirited.” In court, he tried to prove she was not mentally capable of taking care of their children. But for all his efforts, he lost the case.
According to Lady Lucan, this enraged Lord Lucan and is the reason he planned to murder her. But it might also have something to with their finances and him not able to pay child support.
Lady Lucan even writes about the financial troubles the two suffered during their divorce.
Outcast from Royal Society
The night Lord Lucan disappeared; Lady Lucan says her life changed forever.
She became a recluse and never socialized again.Other royal family names appeared in the media, but not her name. She was so isolated, she never even stayed in touch with her children.
It’s said that Lady Lucan committed suicide by drinking a poisonous cocktail of drugs and alcohol. She had not seen a doctor in years, and diagnosed herself as having Parkinson’s disease.
When she died in 2017, she left her entire fortune to charity, cutting her children out of it altogether. She wrote that her children didn’t deserve te money because they had bad manners.
As for her husband, perhaps it’s those “James Bonds” good looks that people remember most because throughout the years there have been dozens of unconfirmed sightings of him living in various countries including Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand.
There was even speculation that he fled to India, dropped his royal family names and was disguised as a hippy named “Jungly Barry.”
No one knows where he might be or if he is still alive. However, The High Court of London officially declared Lord Lucan dead in 1999.
The post Royal Family Names: Lady Lucan’s private letters appeared first on The Women's Financial Alliance.