We must not forget that the rig of the squaresail-ship originated in the Mediterranean, so that the spritsail would come most naturally to the aid of the ship for her head canvas. Similarly the lateen, being everywhere seen on the Mediterranean and Nile—on feluccas and dhows alike—would be found at hand for the after canvas. The preference for a lateen sail for the mizzen was based on the reason that such a sail will hold a better wind—will sail at least a point closer to the breeze. Its position in the stern was to facilitate the steering. The _Regent’s_ topmasts and topgallant mast were separate spars fixed to the lower mast but could not be lowered or raised. The topgallant mast had a sail but no yard. It was not till many years after that the topgallant sails had yards. Mr. Masefield states that the topgallant sail began like a modern moonraker, _i.e._ a triangular piece of canvas, setting from truck to the yard-arm of the topsail yard immediately below.[62] The _Sovereign_ was of a similar type, though smaller. She had two decks in the forecastle, two in the summercastle, and in the topgallant poop. What the summercastle exactly was cannot be discovered, but Mr. Oppenheim suggests the very probable theory that it was the poop royal. At any rate it commanded an all-round fire and carried many guns. We shall see as we proceed how strong the tendency was in the sixteenth century to raise the poop to enormous heights. The _Sovereign_ had no main topgallant mast as the _Regent_ possessed. All the armament of both ships was carried in the waist, in the decks of the summercastle and poop, but there was no real gun-deck. With all this top-hamper, there is no wonder that the _Santa Maria_, Columbus’ ship, pitched so terribly. But in spite of the guns, a considerable part of the fighting was entrusted to the archers. Mr. Oppenheim mentions that the _Sovereign_ had on board 200 bows and 800 sheaves of arrows, and but small quantities of gunpowder and lead. When the _Regent_ and _Sovereign_ were launched at the end of the fifteenth century the sensation which they caused can scarcely have been inferior to that in our own times made by the launch of the _Dreadnought_ and _Bellerophon_. The country had never produced such ships before in size and equipment. But just as it would have been impossible for our builders or designers to have suddenly brought a _Dreadnought_ into being, so in the case of the _Sovereign_ and the _Regent_ what was seen was the result of gradual progress. The fifteenth century shipwrights and architects had step by step been feeling their way to higher achievements, and had the Wars of the Roses never occurred there can be little doubt but that these big ships would have been launched in an earlier reign.