Shortly after the battle of Stamford Bridge William the Conqueror finally set sail from Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, in the north of France, and arrived at England on September the 28th at Pevensey in Sussex.

His forces marched slightly to the north towards Hastings, where his army built a castle in which to co-ordinate several raids along the surrounding areas. It wasn't long after the first raids that Harold caught word that William had landed, and began marching his army down to the southern coast, stopping briefly at London in an attempt to gather additional military forces.

The two giant armies collided at Hastings on October the 14th in a huge battle. Harold himself was killed at the Battle of Hastings, along with his brothers Earl Gyrth, and Earl Leofwine. Their morale broken at this loss the remaining English army fled back north.

After defeating William, the current king and his only two brothers still in England he expected to receive the submission of the surviving English leaders, however not to be defeated so easily the members of the Witenagemot council convinced, and crowned Edgar Atheling as the new king of England in an effort to repel William's advancing army.

This decision was further encouraged with support from the with the support of Earls Edwin and Morcar, Stigand, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Aldred, Archbishop of York. These were the main surviving leaders across the country at the time.

Not long after the battle at Hastings William received reinforcements from across the English Channel and began preparations to march around the coast of Kent and around to London, a slow route but one that he had hoped would surprise any army at London. Despite this his army was discovered by a scout troop, and shortly after intercepted at Southwark by an English force, although the attack was quickly repelled, and he continued his march towards London.

Upon reaching their destination his army found it impossible to storm London Bridge due to the sheer build up of defences in the area, and a large collection of troops guarding it. Retreating from this battle William decided on a more circuitous route, and pulled his army away from London and began to march up the Thames Valley to cross the river at Willingford, in Oxfordshire. While there however he convinced, by force, Stigand the Archbishop of Canterbury into submission.

After crossing the river William then travelled northeast along the Chilterns before advancing towards London from the northwest fighting further engagements against unorganised forces from the capital. Having failed to muster an effective military response against William in this second siege, Edgar's leading supporters lost their nerve, and the English leaders surrendered to William at Berkhamstead in Hertfordshire. A few short weeks later William was acclaimed King of England, and crowned by Aldred on the 25th of December 1066 in Westminster Abbey in the centre of London.

Despite this submission from much of the English leaders, local resistance continued to erupt for several years afterwards. In 1067 rebels in Kent launched an abortive attack on Dover Castle in combination with Eustace II of Boulogne.
In that same year the Shropshire landowner Eadric the Wild, in alliance with the Welsh rulers of Gwynedd and Powys, raised a revolt in western Mercia, fighting Norman forces based in Hereford.

In 1068 William besieged rebels in Exeter, including Harold's mother Gytha. Soon, after suffering heavy losses William managed to negotiate the town's surrender. Later in the year the two brothers Edwin and Morcar raised a second revolt in Mercia, again with Welsh assistance. Meanwhile Earl Gospatric led a raising in Northumbria, which had not yet been occupied by the Normans.

These rebellions rapidly collasped as William moved against them, building castles and installing garrisons as he had already done in the south of the country. Edwin and Morcar again submitted soon after, while Gospatric fled to Scotland, along with Edgar the Atheling and his family, who may have been involved in the revolts themselves, although that is not clear. Meanwhile Harold's sons, who had taken refuge in Ireland during the first Norman raids had managed to gather a small naval army to begin raiding in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall from the sea.

Early in 1069 the newly installed Norman Earl of Northumbria Robert de Comines and several hundred soldiers accompanying him were massacred at Durham attempting to quell a small upraising in the area. His death ignited a widespread Northumbrian rebellion, which was joined by Edgar, Gospatric and the other rebels who had taken refuge in Scotland.
The rebellion army moved on to attack York. The castellan of York, Robert Fitz Richard, was defeated and killed,
and the rebels besieged the Norman castle at York soon afterwards.

William hurried with an army from the south, defeated the rebels outside York and pursued them into the city itself, massacring the inhabitants and bringing the revolt to a bloody end, although not before Edgar and the other rebel leaders escaped north to Scotland again. Later William built a second castle at York and strengthened the Norman forces at Northumbria before returning to the south. A subsequent local upraising after William had left was soon crushed by the newly instated garrison at the York Castles.

A few weeks later Harold's sons launched a second raid from Ireland, but were defeated in Devon by Norman forces under Count Brian, a son of Eudes, Count of Penthievre. The end of the rebellions? Certainly not.

In the late summer of 1069 a large fleet sent by Sweyn II of Denmark arrived off the coast of England, sparking a new wave of rebellions across the country. After abortive attempted raids in the south, the Danes joined forces with a new Northumbrian uprising, which was also joined by Edgar, Gospatric and the other exiles from Scotland as well as Earl Waltheof.

The combined Danish and English forces defeated the Norman garrison at York and seized the castles, taking control of Northumbria. Although a later raid into Lincolnshire led by Edgar was defeated by the Norman garrison of Lincoln.

 At the same time resistance flared up again in western Mercia, where the forces of Eadric the Wild, together with his Welsh allies and further rebel forces from Cheshire, attacked the castle at Shrewsbury. In the south-west rebels from Devon and Cornwall attacked the Norman garrison at Exeter a second, but were repulsed by the defenders and scattered by a Norman relief force under Count Brian. Other rebels from Dorset, Somerset and neighbouring areas besieged Montacute Castle but were soon defeated by a Norman army gathered from London, Winchester and Salisbury under Geoffrey of Coutances.

Meanwhile William advanced northwards, attacking the Danes, who had moored for the winter south of the Humber in Lincolnshire, and driving them back to the north bank. Leaving Robert of Mortain in charge in Lincolnshire,
he turned west and defeated the Mercian rebels in battle at Stafford.

 When the Danes again crossed to Lincolnshire the Norman forces there again drove them back across the Humber. William advanced into Northumbria, defeating an attempt to block his crossing of the swollen River Aire at Pontefract.
The Danes again fled at his approach, and he occupied York almost unopposed.

Soon after William bought off the Danes, who agreed to leave England in the spring, and through the winter of 1069–70 his forces systematically devastated Northumbria in what later became known as the " Harrying of the North" where he attacked, and burnt just about every village between Durham, and York subduing all resistance by slaughtering the inhabitants and any animals to ensure that any survivors wouldn't be able to live for long afterwards.

 In the spring of 1070, having secured the submission of Waltheof and Gospatric, and driven Edgar and his remaining supporters back to Scotland, William returned to Mercia, where he based himself at Chester and crushed all remaining resistance in the area before returning to the south.

Sweyn II of Denmark arrived in person to take command of his fleet and renounced the earlier agreement to withdraw,
sending troops into the Fenland area of Lincoln, and Cambridge to join forces with English rebels led by Hereward, who were based on the Isle of Ely. Soon, however, Sweyn accepted a further payment of Danegeld tribute from William and returned home.

After the departure of the Danes the Fenland rebels remained at large, protected by the marshes. Though early in 1071 there was a final outbreak of rebel activity in the area. Edwin and Morcar again turned against William, and while Edwin was soon betrayed and killed, Morcar reached the Isle of Ely, where he and Hereward were joined by exiled rebels who had sailed from Scotland.

 William soon arrived at the Isle of Ely himself with an army and a fleet to finish off this last pocket of resistance.
After some costly failures the Normans managed to construct a pontoon to reach the Isle of Ely, defeated the rebels at the bridgehead and stormed the island, marking the effective end of English resistance.

Many of the Norman sources which survive today were written in order to justify their actions and why they slaughtered virtually entire villagers, many of them innocent just to quell a rebellion force. Even after active resistance to William's rule had died down, William and his barons continued to use their positions to extend and consolidate Norman control of the country.

For example, if an English landholder died without an heir,  or liable successor, the King (or in the case of lower-level landholders, one of his barons) could designate the heir, and often chose a successor from Normandy. William and his barons also exercised tighter control over inheritance of property by widows and daughters, often forcing marriages to Normans before they could inherit the property. In this way the Normans displaced the native aristocracy and took control of the upper ranks of society.

In 1072 William left to return to France, where he needed to be personally present in Normandy to defend the realm from foreign invasion and put down internal revolts. He was able to set up royal administrative structures that enabled him to rule England from a distance. Keeping the Norman lords together and loyal as a group was very important in helping William to rule England while across the sea, since any friction could give the native English a chance to oust their minority Anglo-French-speaking lords.

One way William accomplished this cohesion was by giving out land in a piece-meal fashion and punishing unauthorised holdings. A Norman lord typically had property spread out all over England and Normandy, and not in a single geographic block. Thus, if the lord tried to break away from the king, he could only defend a small number of his holdings at any one time.
A tactic that proved very successful during William's rule.

Thus after been crowned in 1066, and finally quelling the English rebellion in 1071 the Norman Conquest was finally over.