This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1646.
Events
March 24 – The
King's Men petition Parliament for three-and-a-half years' back pay, even though the London theatres officially remained closed through the middle 1640s. No details of their activities in these years survive.
May 5 – Martin Llewellyn's drama The King Found at Southwell is performed at
Oxford; it is the last stage piece presented in the city before its surrender to Parliamentary forces in the
English Civil War on June 22–24.
July –
John Lilburne is placed in the
Tower of London for denouncing his former commander the Earl of Manchester as a traitor.
Henry Burkhead's
closet dramaCola's Fury, or Lirenda's Misery, based on the
Irish Rebellion of 1641 ("Lirenda" is an anagram), is published in
Kilkenny (dated
1645). Burkhead presents the historical persons involved under pseudonyms: among others, the
Earl of Ormonde as "Osiris" and Sir John Borlase as "Berosus".