I love the Norman Conquest.

The book 1066: The Year of the Conquest by David Howarth does a great job at explaining the timeline of events during the conquest.

According to Howarth, once William got to London, the Anglo-Saxon nobility "submitted from necessity" (he cites the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle). He goes on:

It was very imprudent that they had not done it sooner, since God, for our sins, would not better things for us. They gave hostages and swore oaths to him, and he promised them he would be a kind lord to them; and yet, even while they were there, the Normans were ravaging all that they passed over (195).

Obviously William had a kingdom to further conquer and then rule. The Anglo-Saxon nobility basically did see him as a conqueror, and a foreigner. But William had maneuvered in such a way to get the Pope's blessing on his side (I'll have to find more details about this). This meant that his conquering had some sort of holy blessing, which some people grudgingly accepted - no one wants to be excommunicated.

But here is where Howarth answers your question a little better. He states:

There is no end to the arguments about the ultimate merits of the Norman conquest. It must always be hypothetical to compare the England of the following centuries with what it might have become if the English had been left to develop their own way of life. The consensus is that it was beneficial in the long run. But its benefits were no comfort to the people of 1066, because none of them lived long enough to see them. All they saw was a cruel foreign tyranny. It is reckoned that in the next twenty years two hundred thousand Normans and Frenchmen settled in the country, while at least three hundred thousand English people, one in five of the native population, were killed in William's ravages or starved by the seizure of their farm stock and their land (198).

Basically, he was the villain of the day to the native Englishmen. Expanding his control over England lasted years and, as Howarth said, cost the lives of many of the native Englishmen. Howarth also mentions how the English felt in the following years:

Perhaps most of all [the English] resented the castles the Normans built all over England. There was no external enemy, and William was always strong enough to forbid the private wars that had been the plague of Normandy in the past: the only purpose of the castles was to protect the new landlords against their tenants and provide what England had never had before, a huge number of prisons. The grim stone keeps were a threat to every man and woman in every part of England, and stood as symbols of bondage.

I hope that this gives you an idea of the situation post-Conquest during William's reign. I would equate it to any other historical conquest. The native Englishmen were militarily defeated and their king was killed by a foreigner who had a tenuous claim to the throne and spoke a strange, foreign language. Not only that, he wasn't exactly kind. He evicted people from lands they held for centuries and gave them to his Norman buddies. Hence the years of resistance to his rule and the need for the dozens of Norman castles erected during this time.

There's a ton of information in this book, and if you're interested in the Conquest, it is a great book to read. He cites, among dozens more, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Domesday book. If you have any other questions about it I can certainly try to help.

Well, here's a taste of what was written in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle:

Then Earl William came from Normandy into Pevensey... made a castle at Hastings. Then this became known to Harold.... And William came upon him by surprise before his people were marshalled. Nevertheless, the king fought very hard against him with those men who wanted to support him, and there was a great slaughter on both sides.... And the French had possession of the place of slaughter, just as God granted them because of the people's sins.... And there came to meet him Archbishop Aldred, and Prince Edgar, and Earl Morcar, and all the best men from London, and they submitted from necessity when the most harm was done -- and it was great folly that it was not done thus earlier, when God would not remedy matters because of our sins -- and gave hostages and swore him oaths, and he promised them that he would be a loyal lord to them. And yet in the middle of this they raided all that they went across... and they built castles widely throughout this nation, and oppressed the wretched people; and afterwards it always grew very much worse. When God wills, may the end be good.

The Worcester manuscript. Doesn't look like the clergy, at least, were particularly delighted by the prospect of having the Normans in charge. They viewed it as a great misfortune laid upon them by God.

The Anglo Saxon Chronicle, ed and trans by Michael Swanton