Kortenaer to be Obdam's successor before the battle. Kortenaer had been fatally wounded and was incapable of command, but Stinstra, his flag captain kept Kortenaer's flag as admiral of the third Squadron flying and, unnerved by the explosion of the Eendracht, he fled the battle, followed by many ships of that squadron, which assumed that they should follow their leader's flag. Seeing, as he thought, Kortenaer had abdicated his responsibility, Johan Evertsen raised a pendant showing he commanded the fleet, but Cornelis Tromp, the senior Amsterdam officer also raised a command pendant adding to the confusion, as three ships claimed to be fleet flagship. By this stage, any semblance of lines of battle had disappeared, and the battle took on the appearance of a gigantic and shapeless mêlée, although the more aggressive English fleet was in fact forcing many of the Dutch ships, unnerved by the loss of the Eendracht or following Kortenaer's flag in the Groot Hollandia, to retreat. A complete Dutch rout was prevented only by what ships rallied to Evertsen or Tromp and the action of the Oranje, which fought off several opponents for around two hours until, shattered and sinking it surrendered and was burned. These Dutch forces allowed the bulk of their fleet, which had lost all cohesion by around 6pm, to gain a headstart on any English pursuit. During this stage, the Earl of Marlborough and the Earl of Portland were killed and the ships of Lawson's division of the Red Squadron and Teddiman's division of the Blue Squadron joined the main battle forcing more Dutch ships to retreat. Between 6pm and 9pm, the larger English ships concentrated, on forcing first Evertsen and then Tromp into retreat and mopping-up Dutch ships too damaged to escape, capturing three. Tromp later claimed that his rearguard action prevented greater losses, as many of the fleeing Dutch ships' crews were demoralised and would not fight any English pursuers. As Sandwich had broken through the Dutch fleet, it disintegrated in its flight into a number of separate bodies, escaping to different ports. Tromp led one group to Texel, followed by Rupert, Johan Evertsen retreated with another contingent to the Maas () pursued by the rest of the English fleet, and other ships headed for the Scheldt. However, the English commanders did not order a general chase by releasing their faster ships to overtake the slower of the Dutch fugitives,