It seems that sitcoms of the 70s and 80s were full of titled lady characters (usually of a vintage) who either existed to get the main character to do a good deed or to become shocked about what was happening. What happened to them? I presume most of them were played by old rep actress.
The 1870s, perhaps? Ladies Bracknell and Windermere...
Well they weren't main characters (with the exception of To The Manor Born) but they were there. Lady Trusket in The Good Life, Lady Lofters in the Doctor series, Lady Templewood in Are You Being Served and so on.
And Lady Jane in Lovejoy which wasn't a sitcom but was definitely a drama with comedy.
Well she was a character in Jonathan Gash's books, wasn't she?
The titled ladies disappeared with the deference to the higher classes, clergy, politicians, etc, in the 1980s and 90s.
There was a loss of deference to politicians in the 1980s, but we had more sitcoms about them, not less.
And a sitcom about a titled lady, too. But rarely did politicians turn up as background characters any longer, much like titled ladies.
Such as the Lady Marcia Fitzalan? What happened to her?