The day after the battle, Sunday, 15 October 1066, the Normans buried their dead but left the English dead unburied. William then returned to Hastings and remained there for several days, expecting another English army to come and challenge him. None appeared.

The English were confused and didn't know what to do, so they did nothing. Earls Edwin and Morcar had finally decided to support Harold and were on their way south with their own armies when they were told of the results of Hastings.  They turned back.

In late October, after waiting several days for an attack that would not come, his men recouperating from the battle, and receiving reinforcements, William decided to leave the Hastings Peninsula to capture England's three capitals:  Canterbury (the religious capital), then London (the commercial capital), and finally Winchester (the political capital).

Leaving Hastings with his army, William proceeded east up the coast to Romney, which he burned, then to Dover, which he plundered, and then to Canterbury, which surrendered to him and which he did not burn or plunder.

Turning west, he next marched on London but it was so strongly defended that he decided to go to Winchester instead. Harold's widow and the town's leading citizens surrendered the city to him. At Winchester, more Norman reinforcements joined William and he decided he was strong enough to challenge London. Winchester is south of London. William decided to take a circuitous route and approach London from the north. Shortly after reaching Wallingford, which lay about 20 miles north of London, at which point he turned south, he was met by a delegation from London. Earls Edwin and Morcar were among them. The Londoners had heard of the fall of Canterbury and Winchester and also of the destruction that William wrought against any town that resisted him, and therefore decided that the best course of action was to submit.

On Christmas day, 1066, in Westminster Abbey, William was crowned King of England.