Re: Leofric's grandsons, Edwin and Morcar Aelfgarson, they supported Harold for a couple of simple reasons: A) He had forged a marriage alliance with them by marrying their sister Edith for that very reason, and B) he had supported Morcar in Northumbria over Tostig, demonstrating his loyalty to them.
As for Harold's post-Hastings support... really, the loss at Hastings put England in dire straits. With Harold and his brothers all dead, along with their most important thegns, the primary advocates of the Godwine faction were all wiped out. So Harold's sons didn't really have anyone left to advocate for them. Only the eldest son, Godwine Haroldson, (who was around 20 years old) had yet received any lands to speak of; Harold appears to have been priming his eldest to inherit the Earldom of Wessex, and had already given him some rich lands, specifically around Exeter, IIRC. That being said, they did try to take back England. They had the support of King Diarmait of Leinster, and launched an invasion from Ireland in ~1068 and 1069, temporarily taking Exeter and making several successful raids. They continued to make petty raids but after Diarmait and his son died in the early 1070s vying for the High Kingship of Ireland, Godwine and his brothers lost their patronage. They continued making petty raids but died in obscurity.
So who is left? All the Godwinson brothers are dead except for Wulfnoth (a hostage in Normandy). The Haroldson brothers who were of age had fled to Ireland to get help from their allies. Edith of Mercia gave birth to Harold Haroldson after her husband's death, and was forced to flee to protect the baby, with the aid of her brothers. The flower of English leadership was dead on the battlefield, leaving the two Archbishops, as well as the three surviving earls, Edwin, Morcar and Waltheof as the last major English leadership. Archbishop Stigand was on shaky ground because the Pope refused to recognize him, and Archbishop Ealdred was old and infirm. Edwin and Morcar were barely older than the Haroldsons, maybe in their early twenties. They were both new to their earldoms and appear to have been a little bit inept. That may be unfair to say; however, they had recently lost a major battle to the Norse at Fulford before Stamford Bridge, with many of their soldiers and supporters killed. So no great northern army could come down to save the day. Waltheof was an inexperienced kid who had only just received his tiny earldom a year or two before, so there was nothing really he could do.
So what did the last remaining leaders do? They elected the last viable candidate available: Edgar Aetheling. He was the last of the old blood of Alfred, and though lacking the warrior cred of a King Harold, he was all they had left. Chances are, if Edward the Confessor had died a decade later, Edgar would have succeeded rather seamlessly. One of the big reasons why the Witan elected Harold was the threat of multiple foreign invasions. The last inexperienced kid who was elected king during a period of foreign threats was Aethelred the Unready, and no one wanted a repeat performance of his disastrous reign. So they had chosen Harold, the best fighter, and the most powerful noble. But as things were, after Hastings, there wasn't much that could be done to assert Edgar's kingship. Most of the army was dead, most of the nobles too. They held out until William backed them into a corner, and then yielded out of necessity to save their lives, biding their time for a better opportunity to throw off the Norman shackles.
Even then, things weren't hunky-dory for William. The Saxons were a perpetual thorn in his side throughout his reign. Edwin and Morcar led a revolt in 1068 (perhaps in conjunction with the Haroldsons' invasion?) but they were defeated. The Danes also invaded to help the Saxon rebels, but William paid them off. William pardoned the earls, but undertook the ghastly Harrying of the North to punish the English people. They rebelled again in 1071 with the aid of Hereward the Wake, but Edwin was killed and Morcar captured and imprisoned. Waltheof joined two of William's own Norman earls in revolting in 1075, but he was defeated and executed, and that was the end of the old Saxon leadership. Even Edgar Aetheling tried to take back England, attempting on numerous occasions to cajole Scotland's King Malcolm into aiding him. But Edgar had considerable bad luck throughout his life, and ultimately became a pawn of William's sons.
But suppose William had waited, and not invaded England for another 5-10 years. The England he found then would have been very different. The Haroldsons would have matured to the point where they could receive more lands from their father, and would be powerful nobles in their own right. Godwine as Earl of Wessex would be poised to strike for the throne. Edwin, Morcar and Waltheof would have had time to mature and consolidate their holdings. Harold's brothers would have had children of their own who could succeed them as well. Even Edgar Aetheling would have been better equipped to mount a defense, and may have found supporters of his own, provided nobody bumped him off. (If he was allowed to live, I imagine Harold would have neutralized his threat by marrying him off to one of his daughters and thus bringing him into the Godwine family firm.)
William got very lucky at Hastings: by cutting off England's "head," namely Harold, his brothers, and their powerful thegns, he eliminated virtually everyone capable of mounting a substantial resistance against him, leaving a kingdom led by old men and teenaged boys.
That's my tuppence on that.
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Of course, that's only conjecture.
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