1 November – at Whitehall Palace in London, William Shakespeare's romantic comedy and last solo play The Tempest is performed, perhaps for the first time. The Winter's Tale is presented at Court on 5 November.
John Donne's poem An Anatomy of the World published.
3 January – the King's current favourite Sir George Villiers is appointed Master of the Horse;[2] on 24 April he receives the Order of the Garter; and on 27 August is created Viscount Villiers and Baron Waddon, receiving a grant of land valued at £80,000.
23 April – playwright and poet William Shakespeare dies (on or about his 52nd birthday) in retirement in Stratford-upon-Avon and is buried two days later in the Church of the Holy Trinity there.
25 May – the King's former favourite the Earl of Somerset and his wife Frances are convicted of the murder of Thomas Overbury. They are spared death and are sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London.[1][12]
12 June – Pocahontas (now Rebecca) arrives in England, with her husband, John Rolfe,[11][13] their one-year-old son, Thomas Rolfe, her half-sister Matachanna (alias Cleopatra) and brother-in-law Tomocomo, the shaman also known as Uttamatomakkin (having set out in May). Ten Powhatan Indians are brought by Sir Thomas Dale, the colonial governor, at the request of the Virginia Company, as a fund-raising device. Dale, having been recalled under criticism, writes A True Relation of the State of Virginia, Left by Sir Thomas Dale, Knight, in May last, 1616, in a successful effort to redeem his leadership but neither Dale nor Pocahontas see Virginia again.
July – King James begins to raise revenue by the sale of peerages.
The Anchor Brewery is established in London by James Monger next to the Globe Theatre in Southwark; it will be the world's largest by the early nineteenth century and brew until the 1970s.[19]
Dr. John Bullokar's dictionary An English Expositor: teaching the interpretation of the hardest words used in our language, with sundry explications, descriptions and discourses.
John Deacon's tract Tobacco Tortured in the Filthy Fumes of Tobacco Refined.
Robert Fludd's defence of RosicrucianismApologia Compendiaria, Fraternitatem de Rosea Cruce suspicionis … maculis aspersam, veritatis quasi Fluctibus abluens (at Leiden).
17 March – Sir Walter Ralegh in The Destiny leaves on a second expedition to the Orinoco River in search of El Dorado.[2] On 12 June, soon after leaving Plymouth, his fleet is scattered by a storm and it is unable to set out again (from Cork) until 19 August.
29 October – execution at the Palace of Westminster of Sir Walter Ralegh who has angered the Spanish on his final voyage by attacking one of their settlements on the Orinoco. The Spanish ambassador Diego Sarmiento de Acuña, conde de Gondomar has pressurised King James I over the matter.[2]
King James issues the Declaration of Sports nationally permitting certain sports to be played on Sundays and other holidays.[2]
Web site: The government of James I. 2008-03-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20080514135210/http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/123/123%20282%20James%20government.htm. 2008-05-14. dead.
. Adam Nicolson. Power and Glory. London. HarperCollins. 2003. 0-00-710893-1.
Book: Penguin Pocket On This Day. Penguin Reference Library. 0-14-102715-0. 2006.
Web site: A Sketch Map of a Lost Continent: The Republic of Letters. Anthony. Grafton. 2010-04-28. https://web.archive.org/web/20100522195140/http://arcade.stanford.edu/journals/rofl/articles/sketch-map-lost-continent-republic-letters-by-anthony-grafton. 22 May 2010.
Book: Haddon, Celia. Celia Haddon. The First Ever English Olimpick Games. 2004. London. Hodder & Stoughton. 0-340-86274-2.
Book: 1616. The People's Chronology. Everett, Jason M.. Thomson Gale. 2006.
Web site: Alastair. Bellany. Carr, Robert, earl of Somerset (1585/6?–1645). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. 2004. 2012-10-09. 10.1093/ref:odnb/4754.
Book: Kellett, Arnold. King James's School, 1616–2003. Knaresborough. King James's School. 2003. 0-9545195-0-7.
Published 1631.
Bland. M.. William Stansby and the production of the Workes of Beniamin Jonson, 1615–16. The Library. Bibliographical Society. 20. 1998. 10. 10.1093/library/20.1.1.
Web site: Ratnikas. Algirdas J.. Timeline Indonesia. Timelines.ws. 2010-08-12. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20100710081853/http://timelines.ws/countries/INDONESIA.HTML. 2010-07-10.
Book: Robbins, Russell Hope. The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. New York. Bonanza Books. 1959.