Definition
A writ of Scots law commanding a person to formally enter as heir to a deceased predecessor within forty days. If the heir failed to appear within that period, an action could be raised against him as if he had already entered the succession — exposing him to personal liability for the predecessor's debts. The charge thus forced the heir to make an active choice: formally accept the inheritance (with its attendant obligations) or formally renounce the succession. Where renunciation occurred, a decree cognitionis causa was entered, establishing the creditor's debt against the estate without making the heir personally liable. Where the heir ignored the charge altogether, he became personally liable to the creditor as though he had entered.
Common Confusion
The term "charge" here has nothing to do with criminal accusation, financial encumbrance on property, or instructions given by a judge to a jury — all senses that dominate modern Anglo-American legal usage. In Scots law of this period, "charge" retained the older sense of a formal writ or command. Researchers encountering this term in historical Scottish records should not import modern meanings of the word.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a term of exclusively historical Scots law and will appear only in pre-twentieth-century materials — primarily Scottish legal records, treatises on Scots succession law, and comparative law works produced before the modernization of Scottish procedure. Researchers are unlikely to encounter it in English common law sources.
Several research traps apply. First, the procedural logic is unfamiliar to researchers trained in English or American law: the consequence of inaction (personal liability as if the heir had entered) is the operative pressure mechanism, not the formal sanction of contempt or default judgment. Understanding this mechanism requires some grounding in how Scots law treated heirs' liability for ancestor debts — a topic that diverged significantly from English common law.
Second, Bouvier's entry notes that a charge was "either general" — the entry breaks off in the available corpus, but this signals that the instrument had recognized subtypes. Researchers should not assume the Black's definition captures the full taxonomy.
Third, this term connects to the broader Scots law concept of beneficium inventarii and the distinction between heirs who entered simply (accepting all debts) and those who entered with benefit of inventory. The charge to enter heir was a creditor's procedural tool within that system. Tracing a creditor's claim in historical Scottish records may require understanding how this charge fit into the sequencing of proceedings: whether a decree cognitionis causa had been obtained, whether the heir had appeared and renounced, or whether the heir's silence had triggered personal liability.
Finally, because this term surfaces in comparative law treatments written by American and English jurists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (particularly those discussing civil law influences on Scots succession), it may appear in works that are not primarily Scottish in focus. Kent's Commentaries, for instance, touched on Scots and civil law analogues when discussing related subjects.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three source dictionaries agree on the core definition. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's track closely, with Bouvier's providing the most substantive procedural detail: the renunciation mechanism, the decree cognitionis causa, and the signal that the charge had recognized subtypes. The Black's entries are more compressed and do not address what happened upon renunciation.
None of the historical dictionaries situate this writ within the broader architecture of Scots succession law, leaving the researcher without context for interpreting records in which the charge appears. The absence of the complete Bouvier entry (the available text breaks off mid-sentence after noting "A charge was either general") is a genuine gap in the corpus. Researchers needing the full typology should consult primary Scots law treatises — Bell's Principles of the Law of Scotland or Erskine's Institute of the Law of Scotland are the standard references for this period.
Jurisdictional Note
Scots law exclusively. This writ had no counterpart in English common law and does not appear in American law. It reflects the civil law heritage of Scottish succession procedure, which treated heirs' liability for ancestor debts differently from the English approach.