I've read enough propaganda where I can figure it out. Probably started off with Smalcald and went downhill from there. I can imagine, though, that the Tudors might have felt somewhat threatened by them, as well (thus causing a lot of the English anti-Catholicism...from whence ours originated, I'm sure).
(Please to note, this is not to say that Catholics were all wonderful and without sin during those years either...but that wasn't the question)
Absolutely.
While not condoning his actions, it's often overlooked that King Henry VIII had very understandable reasons for wanting that initial divorce which led the English Church to schism from the Catholic Church. England had not long prior just finished up the bloody War of the Roses and stability was just beginning to be restored. If King Henry VIII did not produce a suitable heir to his throne, the country was likely to be plunged again into yet another war and he did not want to see that happen. Catharine of Aragorn was not providing toward that end. A good case could be made that Henry VIII really should have received an annulment of that marriage due to the circumstances under which it had taken place. It was irrelevant, however, considering that her nephew was the Holy Roman Emperor and was holding the pope captive at the time. One could say that, from the beginning, King Henry VIII and the Church of England had a vested interest in being opposed to the Catholic Church.
Fast forward to Queen Elizabeth I and the vested interest in anti-Catholicism becomes absolutely clear. Queen Elizabeth I owed her life and her thrown to the fact that England had broken away from the Catholic Church and she knew it. I'd imagine that there was a deep resentment and, in maintaining her thrown, the unity of England, and a continued cause for war against Spain, probably found it in her interest to stoke the flames of fear regarding "Rome." It isn't difficult to see how Puritan and anti-Catholic attitudes could have arisen within that context.
None of that was to say it was right, of course, but such attitudes do often find their reasons within the politics of a particular time.
The pictures you posted were anti-RC. My question was why people would see RC's as a threat to liberty. You brought up the question with the silly knee jerk "everybody is picking on us stuff".
As with anything context is important. The prejudice against RC's was wrong, but when you look at all the persecution perpetrated by the RCC it was understandable. The RCC had no prior history of being at the forefront of individual liberty.