In some manner, which is not very clear, York House passed to George, the first Duke of Buckingham of the Villiers family. He "borrowed" it from Archbishop Mathew till such time as he could persuade him "to accept as good a seat as that was in lieu of the same, which could not be so soon compassed, as the Duke of Buckingham had occasion to make use of rooms for the entertainment of foreign princes." On "Whitson-Eve," 1624, as recorded in Archbishop Laud's _Diary_, "the Bill passed in Parliament for the King to have York House in exchange for other lands. This was for the Lord Duke of Buckingham." The old structure was destroyed, and a large, but temporary, building, erected in its place, great mirrors covering many of the walls. Nothing remains of this house; but the water-gate, at the foot of Buckingham Street, still marks the stately approach to the York House of Buckingham's time. "I am confident there are some that live," wrote Sir Balthazar Gerbier, who was the keeper of York House and collector of pictures for Buckingham, "who will not deny that they have heard the King of blessed memory, graciously pleased to avouch he had seen in Anno 1628, close to the Gate of York House, in a roome not above 35 feet square, as much as could be represented as Sceans, in the great Banqueting Room of Whitehall." The "sceans" were the pictures with which York House was filled by Buckingham, who paid Rubens a hundred thousand florins for an art collection "'more like that of a prince than a private gentleman' with which the great painter of Antwerp had enriched his own dwelling. Among the pictures were no fewer than 19 by Titian; 21 by Bassano; 13 by Paul Veronese; 17 by Tintoretto; 3 by Raphael; 3 by Leonardo da Vinci; and 13 by Rubens himself."[54] Buckingham did not live at York House: he only used it on state occasions. He was assassinated, at Portsmouth, by John Felton, on August 23, 1628.