He was too young to inspire confidence. So the English backed Harold and lost anyway. As William was carving his way slowly toward London after the battle of Hastings, the Londoners (along with earls Edwin and Morcar, who were there at the time) tried to get an effective resistence going, by pushing to have Edgar crowned. But he was only a youth, and without a real leader with eminence, the English could not unite behind anybody and get anything done: if just one of the Godwinson brothers had survived Hastings, the resistence would have gone forward - to what eventual end, no one can say.