1646

January–March

• January 5 - The English House of Commons approves a bill to provide for Ireland to be governed by a single Englishman.
• January 9 - Battle of Bovey Heath in Devonshire: Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army surprises and routs the Royalist camp of Lord Wentworth.
• January 19 - Sir Richard Grenville, 1st Baronet, a Royalist fighting for Prince Charles against Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth, is imprisoned for insubordination after proposing to make Cornwall self-governing in order to win Cornish support for the Royalists. After being incarcerated at the tidal island of St Michael's Mount off of the coast of Cornwall, he is allowed to escape in March to avoid capture by Cromwell's troops.
• January 20 - Francesco Molin is elected as the 99th Doge of Venice after 23 ballots, and governs the Venetian Republic for nine years until his death in 1655.
• January 21 - Philip Sidney, 3rd Earl of Leicester is approved by England's House of Commons as the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
• February 16 - First English Civil War - Battle of Torrington: A decisive Parliamentary victory is gained over the Royalists.
• February 28 - Roger Scott is tried in Massachusetts for sleeping in church.
• March 2 - The future Charles II of England escapes from Cornwall into exile across the English Channel.
• March 6 - Joseph Jenkes obtains the first colonial machine patent, in Massachusetts.
• March 15 - Start of the Battles of La Naval de Manila, a series of five naval battles fought between the Dutch Republic and Spain in the waters of the Philippines.

April–June

• April 24 - The Union of Uzhorod brings the Ruthenian Greek Orthodox Church into the fold of the Catholic Church while allowing it to retain its Eastern and Rusyn character.
• April 27 - King Charles I of England flees from Oxford in disguise and begins Scottish army camp near Newark|his journey to the Scottish army camp near Newark].
• May 5 - King Charles I of England surrenders his forces to a Scottish army at Southwell, Nottinghamshire.
• May 6 - American colonial poet Anne Bradstreet becomes a founding mother of Andover Parish, Massachusetts.
• May 30 - Eighty Years' War: Habsburg Spain and the Dutch Republic sign a temporary cease-fire.
• June 20 - Third Siege of Oxford concludes with signing of the surrender of the Royalist garrison at Oxford to General Thomas Fairfax's Parliamentary New Model Army; on the 24th of June the main force marches out, ending the First English Civil War.

July–September

• July 7 - The populist political movement called the Levellers appears in England with the publication of the Levellers manifesto, A Remonstrance of Many Thousand Citizens by Richard Overton and William Walwyn.
• July 12 - Lightning strikes the gunpowder tower of the castle of Bredevoort in the Netherlands, causing an explosion that destroys parts of the castle and the town, killing Lord Haersolte of Bredevoort and his family, as well as others. Only one son, Anthonie, who is not home that day, survives.
• July 30 - Commissioners of the Parliament of England and Scottish Covenanters meeting in Newcastle upon Tyne set out the Heads of Proposals demanding that King Charles I gives up control of the army and place restrictions on Catholics, as the basis for a constitutional settlement.
• August 19
• *The Westminster Assembly of Divines, meeting in London, approves a resolution to begin the drawing up of the Westminster Confession of Faith, declaring that "These heads of Faith, Repentance, and Good Works shall be referred to the three Committees in their order to prepare something upon them for the Confession of Faith."; the draft is printed and sent to the Parliament of England in December.
• *First English Civil War: Raglan Castle in Wales surrenders to General Fairfax after a 2-month siege; it is later destroyed.
• September 16 - The new Orange College of Breda opens at Breda in the Dutch Republic.

October–December

• October 10 - France takes Dunkirk from the Spanish Netherlands for the first time.
• October 28 - The first Protestant church assembly for Native Americans is held in Massachusetts.
• October 9 - The Anglican episcopacy is formally abolished by an act of England's Parliament.
• November 4 - Massachusetts Bay Colony enacts the death penalty as punishment for denying Biblical inspiration.
• November 16 - Following up on the abolition of the episcopacy, Parliament passes an act to sell the bishops' lands across the Commonwealth.
• December 7 - Countess Louise Henriette of Nassau marries Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, on her 19th birthday at The Hague.
• December 23 - The Covenanters hand over King Charles I of England to the Parliamentarians.