The first introduction of the title of viscount in England was in the fifteenth century. The first to be recognized, John Beaumont was already a viscount in Maine. This was to give him a rank above the barons in the English peerage. Afterward it became a regular rank in the peerage. In England, and later in the United Kingdom, a viscount ranks above a baron but below an earl. The wife of a viscount is called a countess.