viscount: holder of the second lowest rank of peerage (1), called a viscounty or viscountcy. The word derives from the Latin vice-comes, or deputy to a comes (early equivalent of count), and in the British Isles was in early times used to refer to the Sheriff of a county, the earl (Anglo-Saxon equivalent of a count) of that county being then its chief administrative officer, appointed by the Crown. The Latin term vicecomitatu, meaning a sheriffdom, was used in Scottish legal documents until quite recently. Viscount only began to be used as a peerage honour in the 15th century, and is in fact the most recent addition to the ranks of the peerage (2). The first viscountcy was conferred in February 1439/40 on the 6th Lord (Baron) Beaumont (see BEAUMONT, Bt), who thus became Viscount Beaumont. Unlike viscounts in the English peerage, those in the Scottish peerage, the first of whom was Fentoun, so created in 1606, were known as 'Viscount of Blank', even where 'Blank' was a family name rather than a place. The only one still to use this form would appear to be the Viscount of Arbuthnott. For observations on the level of distinction considered as meriting a viscountcy in the 19th and 20th centuries see the appropriate passage in the Introduction. Mutatis mutandis, a viscount, his wife, widow and children are addressed or referred to as for a baron.