Forcing HTTPS doesn't work - .htaccess

Question

I'm trying to force HTTPS through .htaccess and I'm constantly getting an error of too many redirects.
This is my .htaccess file:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^patrickwhitehouse.pw$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://patrickwhitehouse.pw/$1 [L,R=301]
#force SSL
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
Options +MultiViews
<ifModule mod_gzip.c>
mod_gzip_on Yes
mod_gzip_dechunk Yes
mod_gzip_item_include file .(html?|txt|css|js|php|pl)$
mod_gzip_item_include handler ^cgi-script$
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^text/.*
mod_gzip_item_include mime ^application/x-javascript.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude mime ^image/.*
mod_gzip_item_exclude rspheader ^Content-Encoding:.*gzip.*
</ifModule>
RewriteCond %{THE_REQUEST} ^[A-Z]{3,9}\ /([^&\ ]+).html
RewriteRule .* /%1? [R=301,L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1.html [L]
RedirectMatch ^/blogs$ http://www.patrickwhitehouse.pw/blog.html

Answer 1

Your first rewrite rule is the culprit, for each successful redirection to https it then re-redirects to the hard coded http again on the next request after the external redirection...
Try this slightly modified version instead:
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^patrickwhitehouse.pw$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ %{REQUEST_SCHEME}://patrickwhitehouse.pw/$1 [L,R=301]
#force SSL
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
Or, a bit cleaned up:
RewriteEngine On
# force host 'patrickwhitehouse.pw'
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^patrickwhitehouse.pw$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^ %{REQUEST_SCHEME}://patrickwhitehouse.pw%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]
# force SSL
RewriteCond %{HTTPS} !=on
RewriteRule ^ https://%{HTTP_HOST}%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]