"Roman vs Norman conquest of England" Topic

An American asking here…. I was watching a show the other day about the Battle of Hastings. The narrator stated that England was conquered in a single battle. It made me ask, if that is true, why was William's experience in conquering England so different from the Roman's? The Normans won England in a single battle and yet the Romans had a protracted campaign. Why the difference? Did the fact that England was united under Harold make them more susceptible to a single loss vs each tribe in the Roman times?

Curious why the difference…

Well as a American myself.
1066 was three battles.

Battle of York, Where most of the Northern Saxon Leaders/Armies were destroyed by the Vikings

Battle of Stanford Bridge, Where the Viking were caught unprepared and wipeout by Harold's army, Who suffered losses.

Battle of Hastings, Where Harold lost the rest of his army, So no one was left to fight the Norman.

Later William had to fight a bitter campaign in the north to end all Saxon resisstance. Hw also built alot of Motte and Bailey castle to hold the land,

According to my reading, the Norman conquest was not complete in the one battle. But with the Anglo Saxons fighting two major battles(Stamford Bridge and Hastings) in such a short time and the loss of king, nobles and best troops) the resistance afterwards was disjointed and easier for the Normans to defeat.

The Roman invasion was against a disparate group of tribes. Individually easier to defeat, but they had to be suppressed individually too. And then kept down. There wasn't an obvious geo-political unit to conquer. And as they went further north and west, the tribes had had far less exposure to Roman culture.
Harold ruled a kingdom which expected to remain a single unit. With the almost total destruction of The Godwinesons at Hastings, there was no real figurehead for the Saxons to rally around. Still, William had to put down English revolt in the West Country, the Fens and the North. He hadn't fully conquered England for several years after 1066.

I think the major difference was the Romans had to conquer dozens of small "kingdoms" each controlling a small part of Britain. That took time to deal with them sequentially.

The Normans on the other hand only had to deal with one, concentrated, kingdom. Once Harold and his crowd were defeated there really wasn't any other organized power to dispute Norman control, they just had to move through and "mop up".

You asked this yesterday TMP link and got some good answers as well.

Jim

It took much longer than a single battle for the Normans to take control of England.