This paper outlines the origins of the “English Sunday”, the austerity of which was, until recently, a source of dismay for Continental visitors. The strict observance of the Lord’s Day, or “Sabbath-keeping”, proved to be a particularly divisive issue in the seventeenth century. However, a compromise seems to have been reached after the Restoration of 1660. The passing of two major Sunday Observance Acts, in 1677 and 1780 suggests that the new order established by the later Stuarts and their Hanoverian successors was imbued with some of the very values defended by their erstwhile opponents, the Puritans. These acts were still in force in the second half of the twentieth century, probably because they were applied with great flexibility, despite the efforts of the Sabbatarians. If the present situation has nothing in common with the dullness of Victorian Sundays, it is the result of a pragmatic and incremental evolution. Most attempts to impose swift and radical change, be it towards more rigorous enforcement or on the contrary towards liberalisation, as in 1986, ended in failure.