The league of the three Cantons was successively joined by Lucern, Berne, and the rest of the Helvetic body, not without exciting the deep ill–will and jealousy of Austria and all the surrounding nobles, of whom some claimed feudal rights over the revolted districts, others dreaded lest the spirit should spread to their own vassals, and work, as in effect it did, the destruction of their hereditary power and privileges. Hostilities were constantly recurring between neighbours so ill–mated; and the battles of Laupen, Tafwyl, Sempach, Næfels, Morat, and others of less note, bear testimony to the steadiness of purpose with which the feudal chiefs strove to crush a rising power diametrically opposed to their own interests and prejudices, and to the skill, courage, and constancy with which the Swiss maintained a contest apparently most unequal. The most remarkable perhaps is that of Sempach, in which another Leopold of Austria advanced with no less confidence against the audacious burghers of the Alps than had his predecessor seventy–one years before. His standard was followed by 167 lords spiritual and temporal, and a numerous and well–appointed army. The four Forest Cantons, with Zuric, Zug, and Glaris, were opposed to this force. Berne, the most powerful of the confederates, being herself at peace with Austria, declined to take any part in their defence. The Duke directed his main attack on Sempach, a small town, which, in anticipation of the contest, had revolted from him and joined the Swiss. At the same time a division of his army, under the Baron de Bonstetten, threatened Zuric. In addition to the burghers of the city, 1600 men of the Forest Cantons, Zug and Glaris, were collected there; but the enemy’s plan of operations rendered it necessary to divide their force: and leaving the men of Zug and Zuric to defend their own territory from invasion, the rest of the Swiss, about 1400 in number, marched to meet the Austrian prince. “Sempach, a small town about nine miles from Lucern, lies at the head of a lake nearly six miles in length, the country round it rising into meadows, thence into corn–fields, and lastly into extensive woods which crowned the hills. The Confederates occupied these woods.